February, a Decade Ago
by chickenscrews
Summary: Xehanort picked up the shovel as he arose and looked one last time at the grave before walking away. "And you needn't worry about your students. I'll take good care of them." —Following Eraqus' demise, Terra, Aqua, and Ven swore their allegiance to Xehanort on the brink of the First Contact War with the Heartless. This is the final month before they fell to ruin. AU.
1. The Last Farewell

Special thanks to goirkens for proof-reading this :)

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><p><em><strong>February, a Decade Ago<strong>_

_**Chapter One: The Last Farewell**_

_**The Land of Departure, on the eve of March…**_

A rusted shovel pierced the undisturbed grass. With a grunt, the old man scooped it and the dirt beneath aside and then thrust the tool again into the soil, repeating the pattern. If he wished, the old man need only have waved his hand and willed the earth to flee from him. All that power and more lay at his disposal. _But it wouldn't be the same. This is personal._

"I did everything in my power to save you," Xehanort lamented before ploughing further into the grass-covered precipice, Eraqus' old castle far behind him.

The sun retreated behind ominous clouds. A storm was brewing. _Spring really has come early this year…_

"And I know you hated everything I stood for—" A drop of rain splashed atop a flower nearby and the old master plunged deeper into the ground. "—and maybe I felt the same way about you. But I never wanted it to come to _this_."

He dug with the shovel once again. In time, the specks of rain became a light shower, piddling against his back. But the downpour grew and thunder rolled in the distance. An air of genuine heartbreak adorned the old man's features. "So, why? Why did you force my hand?" And as the burial tool struck the earth, a crack of lightning split the heavens.

In time long endured, Xehanort had carved a pit shoulder-deep, drenched to the marrow in rainfall. _But it's not enough!_—and so the rusted shovel plunged further into the mud.

"If only you had heeded me and embraced the darkness within you—!" A coughing fit overtook him and he lurched over in the grave, collapsing to his hands and knees. This wasn't the sort of weather a man his age should spend so long exposed to. He wheezed and his breathing became rapid and shallow. Finally, he retched in the mud. And when his lungs steadied, he reclaimed his grip on the shovel and tossed the vomit away with the patch of earth beneath it. He continued as he dug, "Instead, you chose to reject your own nature, clinging to that hoary notion that the path of light is the _only_ true road to salvation. And so, you found only destruction."

_Six feet, more or less. This should do._

Xehanort threw the shovel over the edge and then miserably leaped against the earthen wall and climbed his way out. When he pulled himself over to the surface, he turned back to his handiwork and laid on the ground, arms outspread as his legs hung carelessly over the pit. He looked up at the black heavens and smiled as the rain struck him.

"You see? There's the darkness. A terrifying squall, isn't it? It frightens the meek and the righteous flee for shelter at the sight of it, warning young children to never wander while the darkness rages on. 'It is evil,' you say. 'No good can come of it.' But you forget: ruin brings about creation. Though there will be destruction, do the plants and the trees not thrive from such downpours? It allows them to grow, emboldened and magnificent for when the storm yields and the sun shines once again. Darkness is only a beginning, you see; not an end. It will fall, in time, and a glorious new light will emerge. The worlds will begin anew, immensely strengthened by the fires that forged them, and a new age of prosperity will flourish! Ah, but you do not see this—only what lay in front of you, too shortsighted to fathom the grander design."

He paused a moment, his smile subsiding. "For what it's worth, I truly hope you've found your peace."

Xehanort grunted as he returned to his feet. He picked up the shovel as he arose and looked one last time at the massive grave before walking away, mounds of earth on either side and his work only halfway complete. _This hole still needs something to occupy it and then be reburied_. "And you needn't worry about your students. I'll take good care of them."


	2. The Best Laid Plans…

_**Chapter Two: The Best Laid Plans…**_

_**London, on the first night of February…**_

One inky-black leg trod silently through the door to the balcony box, that compact throne room reserved for the most prestigious guests at the Royal Opera House, and then the rest of the shadow-man followed suit. Beady yellow eyes held their gaze on the silver-haired man a short distance away, his attention drawn to the performance below and his back completely turned. The blue-haired young woman beside him was likewise oblivious. And in the intruder's mind, he cursed the name of the wretch who first cursed him: _Xehanort_. He still appeared young and healthy after all these years, just as captive Vanitas informed him.

The encroaching figure of dark mist conformed to the build of a gentleman garbed in black attire fitting of his elite surroundings. His hair was long and ebony, his face adorned by a long, wire-thin moustache, and in place of a left hand, the appendage he drew from his coat pocket was an iron hook. Once in close enough proximity to his target, James Hook raised the bladed prosthetic overhead and swung down for the kill—

—only for "Xehanort" to bolt upright from his seat and turn to intercept the hook mid-fall, clutching what remained of the captain's wrist with one gloved hand and seizing his throat with the other. And when Hook saw the face of his strangler, he knew at once he'd been deceived.

"What?!" he choked, "You're not—!"

"Expecting somebody else?" Terra seethed.

Shoving his chair aside with one leg, platinum-haired Terra pressed forward in his hold on the assassin, forcing him to arch painfully backward. Hook tried breaking the grip on his throat with his free hand, but he hadn't counted on facing one as strong as this.

"Wh—ere is Xehanort?!"

Aqua had risen from her seat and joined Terra at his side. Even in the evening gown, she proved intimidating as ever when she chose to be. "The Master knew about your schemes and planned this for some time. As we speak, he and Ven should be commandeering your ship right about now."

Gagging in Terra's grip, Hook faced considerable difficulty calling on his dark powers to free him, though the panicked black wisps emanating from his body didn't go unnoticed. Aqua drew her Keyblade, Rainfell, and held the magically-charged edge only inches from his face.

"Don't bother," she said. "You'd be gone the second you tried. You've lost, Hook. And don't think we'll be through with you so quickly."

A decrepit smile formed on the Captain's mouth. "Don't count me out just yet, my dear. Do you really think I didn't come prepared for a turnaround like this?"

Concentrated on keeping their assassin-turned-captive powerless, Terra and Aqua never observed a duo of winged, jet-black Invisibles materializing on the verge of the balcony behind them, their swords drawn and their targets vulnerable. Only through honed intuition was Aqua startled at how easy this all seemed and turned with barely a moment to spare before the Heartless plunged their blades at the Keybearers. In that moment of panic, Aqua shrieked while instinct compelled her to raise her signature magic dome to guard against the assault. Had she responded even a fraction of a second sooner, the barrier wouldn't have formed around the Invisibles' swords, trapping the enemy weapons midway through the rapidly weakening shield and halting them only inches from Aqua's face.

"Aqua!" Terra turned his head to check on his friend. It wasn't often he heard her shriek. At the sight of the daunting Heartless purebloods and at how close he and Aqua came to dying just then, fear momentarily surged through him…

…Just enough for Hook to catch his breath and draw a flintlock pistol from his black overcoat. Terra snapped his attention back to the captain at hearing the gun primed and found himself staring down the loaded barrel. Hook pulled the trigger. Terra's blood splashed in the air.

"Terra!" Aqua cried again, fearing the worst as the Invisibles finally shattered the dome and went for the kill. At the echoing gunshot and the screams, panic swelled through the Opera House and many guests bellowed with terror and scrambled for the exits. Given the crowded state of the building and inconvenient nature of the rows of seats, the mass exodus would take a while.

But Terra had survived the gunshot. His quick reflexes cost him only a deep, jagged line of flesh running along the left underside of his jaw to the surface of his cheekbone. The bullet came dangerously close to his eye before it passed through the balcony's roof. And Aqua's own skill had saved her as well. As the magic dome was destroyed, she'd just as hastily used her Keyblade to parry the twin assailants' swords, but now she was left to battle them alone.

And Hook had fallen back-first onto the floor after Terra released him, but scrambled to his feet and, just as Terra tried to refocus his attention on the one who scarred him, the evil captain caught him again in a visceral uppercut with his hook-hand, bucking the Keybearer's head back and sending him bellowing down to the blood-stained carpet as he clutched at the fresh wound. He would be lucky if anything remained of his right eye.

Caught helplessly in the onslaught of the two Invisibles, Aqua knew she had no time for fear, for _guilt_—yet, being helpless to save her friend inspired those emotions within her regardless and her performance suffered for it. Hook fled for the still-closed door, gradually transforming to a figure of shadowy mass to cross through again, but after only one foot stepped into the other side and before his alteration was complete, he paused to seize the opportunity he'd been granted. Terra bleeding and powerless on the ground, Aqua distracted by the Invisibles and completely exposed from the back… _If I can't have Xehanort, I'll take his kiddies instead!_

And so the pirate summoned from a haze of darkness a volatile explosive wrapped as a present that hung on his hook. Terra caught sight of the captain's move and alarm had renewed his vigor. Face still dripping with blood, the silver-haired Keybearer leapt to his feet and called Earthshaker to his grip.

"No!" Terra furiously cried and a bolt of dark firaga shot from the edge of his Keyblade, to his shock—_Is that…supposed to be fire?_—and the captain's. The dark missile collided hard into Hook's face, launching him through the now-splintered door he once stood inside and against the wall of the hallway beyond just as the bomb was tossed. But though Terra's interference altered the trajectory enough to save himself, the bomb landed mere feet away from the dueling Aqua and the two Invisibles. A wave of dread overwhelmed the four in that final moment and, before Terra could so much as call his friend's name, that far half of the balcony exploded into flame and Aqua vanished from sight. The shockwave threw Terra against the back wall and left him disoriented for some time.

Then, it was Terra's turn to suffer the fear, the _guilt_ of being helpless to save his best friend from the enemy they were meant to apprehend. When he came to, he shocked his remaining eye open and bolted for the charred edge of the balcony, using a wind spell to clear away the enveloping smoke. He gaped down the long two stories, searching for Aqua amid all the other casualties and what remained of the still-dispersing crowd.

"Aqua, please…" he continued to scan feverishly from the vantage point until he finally saw her, motionless, parts of her flesh scalded, and sprawled atop shattered seats, on the brink of death or already there, beside a dying Invisible still fading away (the other must have been obliterated on impact from the explosion). Terra thrust his Keyblade in her direction, "Heal!" and the ephemeral green light sparked atop Earthshaker and instantaneously enveloped the broken woman. In seconds, her breathing steadied and the severity of the burns she sustained diminished. He didn't have enough to mend the other casualties, let alone his own face, but if it meant saving Aqua, any price was worth it. Relieved, Terra wiped off some of the blood from his face to the gloves and sleeves of the tuxedo Xehanort had lent him, no longer concerned with the consequences of tarnishing them. He was prepared to leap down beside Aqua and carry her back home if need be, their mission a bitter half-success, were it not for the unexpected rustling behind him.

He turned to the splintered doorway and saw Hook struggling to return to his feet, his entire head scorched and his hair burned away, though his powers were attempting to restore him. The demon pirate shot every shred of malice through those baleful eyes and Terra returned with the only eye he had left, furiously clutching Earthshaker with a blood-soaked hand as the captain leveled his pistol once again.

"You bilge rat!"

He fired, but the bullet was parried aside by a swipe of the Keyblade. Hook gawked a moment at what Xehanort's apprentice was capable of, then squeezed the trigger again. Another effortless deflection.

Hatred swelled within the young Keybearer and he slowly approached his target. "I'm going to make you pay for what you've done here."

Another bullet fired and reflected.

"You dare to assume _I'm_ responsible for this?!" Hook screeched, "Have you any idea what your master's done to me?!" He fired and again was denied. "Promised me an escape from my ageless prison, riches and treasure beyond belief in the Door to Darkness, only to leave me and me crew to die when we crossed the other side!" Once more he pulled the trigger and once more the bullet was intercepted by Earthshaker. "'Corridors to infinite worlds,' he said! 'Wealth greater than any mind could dream of!' And you know what we found?!" A sixth crack of lightning from the barrel repelled by the Keyblade and Hook scurried to reload. "Only living death! The Heartless cursed us and we became vessels for their blasted crusade! Neither living nor dead—only becoming slaves to darkness just like them, and all because of Xehanort!"

Hook finished and aimed the gun again, only for a concentrated beam of frost from Earthshaker to render the weapon useless in a case of ice. The gap between demi-Heartless and Keybearer became dangerously small. Hook took a moment to examine the young man before him—_the silver hair, the tan skin…_

Hook frowned. "He looks a lot like you."

With that, he slung the useless pistol at Xehanort's reflection. Terra only craned his neck to the side and the frozen projectile sailed right past as Hook fled into the hallway, hastened by dark powers. Terra snarled and dashed after him.

Two floors below, Aqua stirred from unconsciousness amid the rubble, sore, wounded, and unsure how she survived. Her eyes shot open and she bolted upright, ignoring the surging pain.

"Terra!"

She gaped at the devastated balcony where she last saw him, but he was far away, abandoning the opera house to pursue the target through streets of snow and cobblestone under a gloomy sky while he left her behind as collateral damage. She hadn't seen him leave. She didn't know he left. She wasn't even sure she saw him mobile right before the bomb. Already wounded as he was from the gunshot and the hook—_is he even still alive?_

Rainfell was still in her hand after all that. She looked to her side and saw the final remains of the dying Invisible beside her fade away into darkness. _Amazing it took that long_—Aqua pondered.

"Excuse me, Miss, are you alright?"

Aqua peered over her shoulder and saw a unit from Scotland Yard tending to the wounded caught in the destruction. One of the officers had rushed to her side.

"Just give me a second," Aqua groaned. "Heal," she mumbled weakly and the soft light emanated from Rainfell and restored her and those injured in near proximity. At once, the patients knew their health was returning—perhaps not completely, but just enough to stand again—and the policemen marveled at the sight. The Keybearer stood, never minding what minor abrasions remained, and stared longingly at the ruined balcony. She saw no emerald glow up there when Curaga was cast—it was a spell that only worked on the living. _Please, Terra, get up…_

A circlet of dark fire slowly fathomed about the Keybearer, a signature technique of a Heartless she'd become all too familiar with, and the civilians and policemen panicked at the strange happening. Aqua instantly assumed the battle-stance and raised the magic dome to repel the enclosing globes of flame. But the ring of dark fire proved only a distraction. While Aqua protected herself, the second Invisible—the one assumed obliterated on impact by the explosion, but clearly still existent—burst from the rubble and plunged its hand through a policeman's heart. The others shrieked, but their cries were silenced as the pureblood's sword seemed to gain a will of its own and ricocheted through the air, passing through the hearts of every officer and civilian in the small gathering. There were fifteen victims total. And as the flames around Aqua diminished, she was met with the gruesome spectacle of innocents being corrupted and contorted by dark energy until their hearts shattered and they became Heartless. Midway through their lives' end, the wounded Invisible stretched forth its hands and absorbed the still-transforming victims into its own being through a chaotic stream of shadowy tendrils connecting the pureblood to its prey.

As Aqua readied a defensive position and activated her armor (her formal dress both a hindrance and long since ruined), the Invisible, aided by the essences of those raptured, steadily transcended into a more powerful breed—an Orcus—and then continued to grow tremendously in size, its enhanced physique rippling with coursing red veins and emanating a volatile aura. The Giga Orcus hovered at three times its original stature, wielding a blade far more imposing than it once carried.

Momentarily awe-stricken at the unexpected magnitude of the Heartless, the armored Keybearer clenched her teeth—_Guess Terra will just have to wait_—and leapt into battle.

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><p>-Psst!- Notice anything familiar about Terra's facial wounds? ;)<p> 


	3. Ship of Corpses, Phase 1

Jexel is an OC. There may be a few OCs in this story, but they're only minor characters who shouldn't bear _too_ much on the plot. The core of this story will always be Xehanort and his apprentices (until such time as I say it isn't, but that's not likely).

Also, let me know if the story becomes too violent for a T rating and I'll change it to M.

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><p><em><strong>Chapter Three: Ship of Corpses, Phase 1<strong>_

_**Below the deck of the airborne **_**Jolly Roger**_**; that same, wintry night…**_

From the encroaching hordes of bloodthirsty pirates—most demi-Heartless, some full-blooded, some artificial, some darkened only by their wicked souls—leapt murderous Ventus high overhead, hardly the innocent soul he once was, unleashing every shred of carnage and malice he'd become intimate with in the recent past upon those pirates surrounding him, cutting down and blasting away all he could reach with a rusted Keyblade, Wayward Wind, held reverse-grip in his right hand and a tempered cutlass in the other. The young blonde garbed in attire not unlike his enemies was the focal target of the crew's fury, their ravenous craving for revenge. Already Ven had slaughtered an odd dozen of them in the lantern-lit confines of the ship's interior while they'd barely laid a scratch on him. For seven weeks, Ven had been one of them.

_And now, I'm killing them._

Battling alongside the youth against the innumerable assailants was Xehanort himself, aged and withered, yet one of the most powerful Keyblade Masters alive. He bore no resemblance to silver-haired Terra, that youthful depiction Vanitas had deceived Hook with after weeks of interrogation and torture, and with no reference of Xehanort's true appearance, Ven smuggled the old man aboard with ease. Now the two, master and prodigal, mutinied side-by-side, slaughtering the dark crew of the Jolly Roger to save their imprisoned comrade and finally end Captain Hook's Heartless campaign.

As Ven was airborne, he repeatedly swung Wayward and his cutlass in separate arcs, releasing short bursts of lightning to scatter the enclosing enemies on his side. Battling the pirates at his back, Xehanort repelled every swing of sword and claw before quickly summoning a Zero Graviga field with his free hand, an attack which trapped every surrounding enemy on his side and sent them chaotically drifting into a concentrated point in the air. With the Heartless pirates trapped in the concentrated anti-gravity field, Xehanort charged and slung a massive ball of flame from his Keyblade and watched contently as his prisoners combusted in a fiery blaze, his features illuminated by the explosion.

But as Xehanort disposed of the nuisances on his side, a Novashadow hastened to strike him from behind as Ventus finished his aerial assault. Panicked, Ven called to warn the old man—"Master!"—and Xehanort turned in time to witness the youth descending upon the Heartless, sinking both blades into the beast's back and crushing it under his weight.

The old man smirked, "You called me 'master' just now. We're making some good progress."

"Wha—?" Ven glared as he rose to his feet, outraged at his mistake. "This changes nothi—!"

Xehanort clasped the boy's shoulder and moved him aside, firing three shots of Firaga from his Keyblade at a trio preparing to fire on them with their pistols. "Doesn't it?" the master retorted, "Who gave you this opportunity to reach your greatest potential and unlock talents you never knew you had?"

A duo of demi-Heartless crewmembers leapt in succession through the wall behind Ven in a dark portal, swords bared and ready for the kill. But Ven, seasoned by months of intensive training, hastily swung Wayward over his shoulder, parrying the a blade moments before impaling him, and with the first enemy blade deflected, he followed through—his back still turned—by backhandedly thrusting the cutlass into the pirate's gizzard and then fully turning to slash him across the collarbone and torso with an ice-charged Keyblade. And as he completed the fatal strike, Ven swung the retrieved cutlass upward to catch the second demi-Heartless' strike and countered with a skewering thrust of the Keyblade into the stomach. The brigand lurched over and Ven continued the execution with a stab through the neck with the cutlass. As he thrust-kicked the enemy from his blades, the dark pirate collapsed into fragmented clumps of corrupted flesh and was dust before he hit the ground.

Xehanort continued his lecture as he dispatched another unit with his magic and Keyblade. "Who granted you unlimited freedom to pursue your dreams and gave you a means to channel your ability? Were it not for my own benevolence, would you have ever harnessed such strength or known this life as a pirate?"

Outraged, Ven turned his anger to another gathering horde just beyond the unwanted master. He screamed his frustrations and dashed right past the old man and into the new crowd of enemies. Ven massacred them with such a speedy fury, ricocheting from target to target and obliterating them either with a crushing swing of his blades or a visceral assortment of magic. At one point, he merely cut a gash into a Soldier-type Heartless' throat, but near the end of his combo attack on the rest of the company, Ven spun back around and punted the short monster's head right off, smashing it into the pots and pans of the galley, near where other Heartless were gathering and lining up their shots for a volley of musket-fire. There was only one of the immediate group left, a disoriented Neoshadow that somehow survived Ven's wrath. Thinking quickly, Ven dashed behind the Neoshadow, slung his Keyblade around its throat, and used it as a humanoid shield for the gunfire. The body faded into black mist after catching the bullets and spiteful Ventus charged straight through the dark cloud before he catapulted through the air, blades raised, and landed as a predator among the ranks of Heartless gunmen.

Xehanort marveled at the boy's brutality, pleased at how young Ven was doing most of the work now. _But he can't have all the fun_—and so Xehanort teleported within the ranks of the pirates and joined the boy in cutting them down. "I encouraged your growth where Eraqus would have kept you locked away forever. And now look at you! You're a marvel of a Keyblade Master leagues beyond what you once imagined! So run from me all you want, boy. You need only look in the mirror to see the prodigy of my creation."

"You're wrong!" Ventus bludgeoned an Air Soldier's face against a wooden post with the guard of Wayward and then turned his hateful gaze to the old man. "This isn't what I wanted at all! Just look at me, Xehanort! Can't you see what your training has made me?!" At this, he caught the Air Soldier recuperating and so repeatedly bashed its face in further until it burst into waves of dark matter. "This isn't…" Ven was choking up, "…what Master Eraqus would've wanted."

Xehanort decapitated the last of them within arm's reach and blasted away the final enemy with a discharge of lightning from his palm moments before the demi-Heartless fired its pistol. Then the old man turned Ven back to face him, holding the boy steady with both hands on his shoulders. "And what _would_ Eraqus have wanted? To keep you trapped in your prison in the Land of Departure, never to set foot on another world or unlock the vast troves of power buried within you? Your old master did everything he could for you, but you've been long since ready to take the next steps and you've advanced so much in such a short time. You're well on your way to claiming the Mark of Mastery."

Despite being trusted with such a deep-cover mission for his first assignment, the sensation of trust remained foreign to young Ventus. _Maybe because I can't even trust myself._ Xehanort didn't know—_he can never know_—what writhing anguish Ven suffered to bottle inside ever since they sprung the trap. Every crewmember slain by his or his master's blade in the last twenty minutes whom he spent the past seven weeks familiarizing with; every contorted gaze of betrayal as the crew watched in horror while one of their own turned on them…

_Gentleman Starkey. Ed Teynte. Billy Jukes. Robert Mullins. Cecco. Cookson. Skylights. How can Xehanort ever know what it's like to betray your own family?_

"I can see it in your eyes," the master said. "There is far more at work here than your hatred for me. But now isn't the time for it. We have to save Vanitas first, and then you may spurn the universe." He let go of the boy's shoulders and continued across the wooden floor, enemies cowering in his presence yet stupid enough to attack anyway. The hindrances were erased in seconds.

Ven ground his teeth, failing to hold back the brimming tears of frustration and smashed his forehead against the wooden pillar where he pummeled the Air Soldier not long ago. A small droplet of blood trickled from beneath his pirate headband, but Ven ignored it. He deserved far worse.

A pirate screamed at the top of his lungs: "Mr. Smee! Kill the prisoner—!"

Xehanort shattered the one giving the order into fractals of ice and called to the young Keyblade wielder while being further surrounded by Heartless, one of them a Guard Armor, "Ven, stop him!" The youth returned to the moment and bolted for the pirate fleeing to the brig to eliminate Vanitas. The encroaching crew and Heartless didn't matter anymore and Ven only dashed past them or leapt overhead, leaving them for Xehanort to finish off.

Mr. Smee was a rotund little creature and the Captain's right-hand man. Cowardly and inept in a fight, Mr. Smee retained far more of his humanity than most of the crew. He was split almost vertically in half by the Heartless curse, the right of him the spitting image of the human he once was and the left side a Shadow. And so the tubby pirate fled, the remains of his heart pulsating with terror knowing Ventus was hot on his trail and likely driven insane by bloodlust. Only by the interference and determination of various crewmembers confronting the Keybearer did they manage to slow him down. And with Ven falling behind, Mr. Smee arrived at Vanitas' cell near the far end of the wall, panting heavily and his heart still racing. Not wasting a moment to rest, the short pirate leveled the blunderbuss at the chained prisoner and prepared to fire, mumbling to himself in fear every moment of the way.

And just an instant before pulling the trigger, half-blooded Smee felt a shadow looming over him. He looked overhead and saw Ventus, airborne and teeming with fury, his arms outspread and their foreheads nearly touching. As if by some unorthodox will, Ven dropped his weapons and used his arms to trap Smee in a headlock as he vaulted above the target, and as his feet finally touched the floor, he threw the half-Shadow pirate and slammed him hard against the nearby wall. Smee lay unconscious on the floorboards and Ventus was panting to catch his breath now.

"Oh? Is it time to bust me out already?" Vanitas called sarcastically from his dim cell. He was the only one imprisoned in the otherwise empty brig. "Why don't you take another week or seven to chum around with these scumbags?"

Ven retrieved his weapons, small electric bursts from his palms attracting them back to his hands. "At least they appreciated me." There was a notable strain in his body when he gripped the rusted Wayward. Vanitas caught it.

"Not so easy anymore, is it? Your 'tattoo'—the mark on your back to mask yourself from the Heartless—it's resisting that Keyblade, am I right?"

Ventus said nothing but only grunted as he rose to inspect the cell. The bars were magically coated, making them almost impenetrable. And within, Vanitas sat chained and sorely wounded, scarcely able to move. And his appearance…Ven watched his pirate comrades torture Vanitas while undercover and couldn't bear to face him after doing nothing to lessen the pain. He was grateful for the heavy shadows in the cell that concealed the hideous scars.

Vanitas laughed as he imagined the pain Ven must've felt fighting all those pirates with unwilling Wayward. "And after all that time you spent basking in a life of darkness and corruption, I'll bet that toy barely recognizes you! So neglected and forgotten—just look at the rust on it!"

After a brief examination of the cell, Ven leveled his Keyblade to break the magic barrier, only to linger as he gathered urgent thoughts. _Why am I doing this? Who's Vanitas to me?—just another of Xehanort's puppets, no doubt. Before I accepted this mission, I never even heard of the guy. And all he's done since I found him is mock and scorn me. Never thanked me for doing something so dangerous just for him._

"Yo, Venny-boy! Time to let me out!"

_At least the crew respected me. They actually cared and made me one of their own. Showed me a life of adventure and ecstasies I never dared to dream of. And what happens when this is all over?—did I even think of that? Will Xehanort drag me back into some prison where he can always keep an eye on me just like Eraqus did? He granted me this freedom only because he needed Vanitas back, but what happens next? Was this really worth betraying the ones who called me family?_

Vanitas began to worry. "Oh, no. You're doing this?! You're really having second thoughts?!"

_But Terra and Aqua… I know they never approved of me running away and were reluctant to let me do this—hell, they even let Master Eraqus keep me trapped on our home-world…but they're the first family I can remember. But maybe I don't have to hurt them. So what if I don't help them from here on out? They've iced Hook and Xehanort can handle himself. If I run away right now and go back to Tortuga, find a new crew and start over, would that even affect them?_

"Captain Hook is _finished_, Ven! The _Jolly Roger_ is just a flying coffin! You have nothing to go back to, so just open this cell and get me the hell outta here!"

_This really is my only chance to be free, to live my own life. My time on the _Jolly Roger_ is over, but I still have so much to go back to. So that's what I'll do. I'll finish what I started here and then get out before Master Xehanort can stop me._

A light sparked from the tip of rusted Wayward, to Vanitas' relief, and a concentrated beam of energy shot from the Keyblade to destroy the cell's magic barrier. The brig was amply fortified and Ven knew this wouldn't be a simple lock-picking. But after a short time of the magic energies conflicting and blowing through Ventus' hair, the barrier's Keyhole gradually emerged in fragments. But seconds before completing it, a myriad of crystalized spikes streaked through the air from the side, all aimed for the blonde Keybearer. Alert, Ven instantly leapt leeward, the emerald weapons of impalement only narrowly missing him and unconscious Smee.

As he returned to his feet and halted against the cell behind, Ven turned to look down the opposite end of the brig's hall and beheld a very human-looking demi-Heartless almost a year older than he. His hair was median length and raven-brown, the bangs a mess and the back tied in a low ponytail reaching his upper back. His skin tan, build slim but toned, and missing right eye adorned by a black eye-patch, the young pirate stood before Ven with green crystallic blades protruding from his bared forearms and hands. Pure, unyielding hatred teemed from the teenager's face and remaining, tearstained emerald-green eye.

"I'm glad the others didn't kill you first," he said to Ven. "Now I can gut you all by myself."

"Jexel, listen to me!" Ventus pleaded urgently, "Hook is gone! The _Jolly Roger_ is lost! Walk away now and I won't have to hurt you!"

"Fat chance, Ven. This crew was my family and I'll go to the end of the _worlds_ to avenge them."

"But this doesn't have to be the end! …Come with me to Tortuga. We'll start a new crew, find a new ship, and go on so many more adventures. There'll be no one to stop us—just you, me, and a crew of our own sailing against it all, just like we always dreamed of."

Jexel scowled. "I considered you my brother once, but after seeing your true face, there's no way in hell I'd trust you not to turn on me as well."

"I didn't _want_ to do this, Jexel! I'd never betray _you!_"

"So why'd you do it if not to take this ship and all its treasure for _yourself?!_ Or have you already pledged your allegiance to another—that old man, perhaps?!"

"No, it's not like that!"

"Then why?! Does it have something to do with that whelp in the cell?! Who is he to you?!"

Ven opened his mouth to object but his words fell short. He honestly didn't have an answer and he hated himself all the more for it.

Jexel continued, noting the fatigue and heavy breathing his former friend suffered from the Keyblade. "Nothin' to say, eh? Guess that's all there is to it. Once I'm through with you, I'm going to kill the old man, and then I'll kill Vanitas. After that, I'm going to kill your other two friends and I'm going to do it nice and slow. Take that to your grave you treasonous _bastard!_"

Jexel hurtled the crystal pikes from his arms in blindingly fast motions and Ven deflected every one as he leapt forward to close the distance between them. There wasn't much room to maneuver within the walkway of the ship's brig, so all Ven could count on for victory was getting in close-range. Jexel understood this and quickly discharged another salvo of lethal shards, but even with so little space to maneuver, the blonde Keybearer kept his old friend guessing by scaling and ricocheting from cell gate to cell gate. As his namesake would suggest, Ventus was a master of using the air to enhance his own speed and agility. Airborne, Ven swung a mighty burst of Aeroga, blasting the crystalmancer off his feet and against the cell gate just beside him.

He was still on his feet. Ven needed him down. Not injured—just _down_. And so Ven touched the ground mere feet away from the young pirate, charged Wayward with just enough lightning to render him unconscious, and thrust the rusted Keyblade for Jexel's torso. But an instant before contact, the crystalmancer erected two meter-long javelins from his forearms, crossed them in x-formation to catch the Keyblade in its grasp, and thrust his arms upward to throw off Ven's aim. The lightning discharged harmlessly overhead, the erratic sparks illuminating Ven's shock and Jexel's rage. The Keybearer still held the cutlass in his other hand. The young pirate was soon aware of this and feared for his life. But when he caught his old friend's hesitation, he protruded a third pike from his knee and thrust for Ven's ribs. Panicked, Ven leapt backward in time to escape with only a shallow gash in his side. He clutched it with the cutlass hand as he backed into the parallel cell door just behind.

Jexel afforded a brief smile in the fleeting victory. _See that, Jex? _—he thought to himself—_He bleeds like all the rest. Just like Ven here told you in the Etherium: "If it bleeds, it dies."_ Then Jexel caught Ventus muttering a spell as he passed his fingers over the wound and a radiant green light shone from the gash, healing it within seconds. Jexel frowned. _Oh yeah. He can do that. $# %._

A brief stare-down—a lone green eye met a pair of blue—and then the Keybearer and the crystalmancer charged for each other, weapons blazing and sparks scattering as metal and crystal clashed and the two warriors sped to and fro. At a point, his back turned, Jexel sheathed a blade from his forearm and just as quickly drew it from the back of his elbow. The crystallic lance grazed a few hairs from Ven's head before he blocked with the cutlass. Jexel repeated the strike with the other elbow and again was caught, but by the Keyblade. The crystalmancer's back now completely exposed, Ven kicked him at the base of his spine, applying a strong gust of wind to throw him to the far end of the hall, out into a more open room. By the sight of how he tumbled and crashed through the alley, Ven initially feared the worst for his friend, but stood bitterly relieved to see him climb to his feet seconds later. There was bloodlust in the pirate's one eye.

Ven was growing noticeably wearier as the fight progressed. Vanitas was right; the pentacle inscribed on the Keybearer's back meant to cloak his presence in darkness, combined with having neglected Wayward for the last two months, was steadily burning away the boy's energy as the two forces conflicted over him. They were fighting each other for Ven—heart, mind, spirit, and body—manifesting in the boy's utter exhaustion. And though his muscles ached and his eyes grew heavy, young Ventus refused to be carved apart by the forces meant to _serve_ him—not _slay_ him—and he raised the Keyblade and cutlass once more as he used the wind to propel himself forward to Jexel's position.

Arms and blades drawn back in unison, Ven released an unexpectedly vigorous scream as he swung at Jexel while riding the airstream. At the speed he travelled, the impact from blocking the Keybearer's blades was enough to momentarily displace Jexel's footing. The current died and Ven skidded behind the young pirate, immediately turning and thrusting forth both weapons to his back.

"Thunder!" The surging bolts concentrated on Jexel's back, prompting a pained cry from him as he was knocked once again from his feet. Ventus doubled over in fatigue, catching himself with his blades against the floorboards. Sweat fell profusely from his body as he gasped for air. But he looked up again and saw Jexel using his own weapons to reclaim his foothold. Ventus clenched his teeth and fired again: "Thunder!"

But the searing bolts were obstructed by a crystal shield Jexel formed, affixed to his left forearm, where the javelin was once secured. After the failed attack, Ven collapsed to his knees, his weapons barely able to support him from being held by such shaky arms. He felt his insides drying, _dying_. Felt his own life being sapped from him with every passing motion he spent while both the light and darkness battled for control within him. The crystalmancer was gaining on him and Ven knew he had to demand this sacrifice from his body if he wished to live. Weakly, he stood as much as he could and raised Wayward and the cutlass once more.

"Thun—" but Jexel, now within arms' reach, swatted the two weapons to either side and out of Ven's grasp, formed a crystallic plate over his forehead, and head-butted Ventus with it. _Hard_. The exhausted Keybearer fell helplessly backward, his balance lost and the floor rising to meet him. But Jexel caught the boy by his collar before he could hit the ground and held him in place as he pummeled him further with a crystal-encased fist. Face—ribs—jaw—neck—in seconds, Ven was reduced to a broken sack of flesh and bone, bloodied and on the brink of eternity.

Jexel examined the half-corpse in his grasp, wondering just how conscious of pain it was. How he _craved_ to make Ventus suffer every form of hell imaginable and destroy him by his own hand. _But it's not the same…this was supposed to be __**my**__ victory! Why did it have to be some other force that weakened him first?!_

Whether it was pity or bitterness in defeat that inspired him, the young demi-Heartless decided it was time to end it. _If I can't be the one to truly defeat him, I'll at least make this personal._ —And so, Jexel converted the crystallic plate on his forehead into a straightened horn as he raised Ven to eye-level. He drew his head back and prepared for one final thrust forward. _Goodbye, my first—and last—friend._

Ventus' eyes were near swollen shut, but he knew the end was upon him. _Jexel…I'm sorry for the pain I caused you. And Terra…Aqua…I've been running from you for so long…I wish could've seen you both just one last time…_ The blonde Keybearer's eyelids closed, sealing off all light. The last sight was of heartbroken Jexel preparing to thrust his horned head forward.

Then, the sound of flesh splitting, bone crunching. Gore splashed and streamed down Ven's face.


	4. Ship of Corpses, Phase 2

_**Chapter Four: Ship of Corpses, Phase 2**_

Gore splashed and streamed down Ven's face.

But it wasn't his.

The blood was sable and dark—that of a demi-Heartless. Ven became slowly aware that he hadn't been killed or maimed by the horn at all. When the Keybearer writhed his eyelids apart to the barest slimmer, he caught but barely perceived the blurred visage of Jexel paralyzed in horror, jaw agape and eye frozen in disbelief. After seconds of suspense, the young pirate's head fell from his neck to the wooden floor and a white, gloved hand reached forward past where the head once rested and grabbed Ven by his collar as the decapitated corpse hit the ground. Ven couldn't comprehend the details of the situation—that Xehanort caught up and teleported behind Jexel to cut off his head with his Keyblade, that the ancient master had caught Ven as the pirate's lifeless hands released him, and that the old man released his weapon and was now forcing a restorative potion into the younger Keybearer's throat. All confused Ven knew was distress and the vague fear that something horrible had happened.

Once certain the small potion bottle was emptied, Xehanort lowered Ventus to the ground, propped against a wall and sitting upright, though slouched and barely conscious. He replaced the crystal flask in his coat and produced a small flagon carved from gold, containing a far stronger tonic: a megalixir. Xehanort continued into the brig's hall, stopping at Vanitas' cell and examining the unfinished Keyhole.

"You look awful, old man," the mutilated prisoner joked from within the shadows.

Xehanort smirked. "You're no prize yourself." He beckoned his Keyblade return to him and completed dismantling the magic seal. —_A remarkable wonder, this prison, that it confined the progenitor of all Unversed. _—Once the barrier shattered apart, the old man telekinetically commanded the corporeal door to open itself for him. It complied and Xehanort stepped through, his weapon ready to free immobile Vanitas from his shackles. The golden shimmer of the megalixir's flask glowed in the boy's filmy eyes.

The effects of the minor potion slowly manifested in Ven's body, allowing him to open his eyes and move his limbs. Once the last of disorientation faded, the young Keybearer looked on in horror at the sight that, seconds ago, he dreaded but could not comprehend. A slow, silent gasp, and fixated in his tear-filled eyes was the headless body of the friend he couldn't save. Still weak, he crawled forward until he could clutch Jexel's tunic, then he collapsed beside him, wailing silently. His face still soaked in tears and the blood of himself and his friend, Ven reached for the demi-Heartless' head and closed his single eye.

_I didn't want to hurt __**you**__. You were my brother, Jexel. And I'd have done anything to save you._

Against the wall adjacent to Vanitas' cell at the end of the hall where Ventus left him, half-Shadow Mr. Smee stirred from unconsciousness, surprised to find himself still alive. A quick, panicked surveillance of his surroundings and he understood the worst came to pass. The ship was dead-silent, the conflict over, and the door to Vanitas' cell—the Keybearer's objective—was wide-open. Without peering inside, he knew the _Jolly Roger_ was conquered and he might've been the only survivor of the crew, save for the traitor who led them all to death. Trembling and afraid, Mr. Smee reached for his blunderbuss as silently as he could, then shakily stood to his feet and took aim at Xehanort, his back turned as he tended to Vanitas' wounds. He had him in sight, but his aim was unstable. He so desired to take that shot, and yet…

A tight, invisible grip formed around Smee's throat, choking him and lifting him into the air, the gun still in his grasp.

"You'll find that you're out of a job, Mr. Smee," Xehanort called, his back still turned, though Vanitas' smirk was all the sign the half-Shadow pirate needed to understand the ancient master's own features. "This ship is now a mausoleum and your captain has no doubt been killed by my other apprentices. What would you have to gain by shooting me? Is it comradery that drives you?—or some misplaced notion of loyalty to the deceased? Are you really willing to throw your life away to honor those who can never repay you?"

Smee flailed further, oxygen escaping him, but not enough to impair his resolve. He still held the gun in one hand and he leveled the shot at the old man as best he could, his finger inching closer to the trigger.

Xehanort sighed. "Or are you really so desperate to see them again that you'll plummet headfirst into the grave the first chance you get? There are other paths left to you besides suicide. The _Jolly Roger_ is now in my possession and I find myself short of a crew to maintain it. I have also longed to study a demi-Heartless firsthand yet have been unable to procure one. I offer you a job as my servant. You will be well taken care of and have a chance at a new life, should you comply. But the choice is yours."

Xehanort released him and Smee fell to the ground, flat on his nose. After a panicked breath of air, he scrambled to his feet and hugged the blunderbuss against him. Once a weapon of vengeance, the gun was reduced to a pacifier. He was frightened, awe-stricken at the power this one old man possessed, and he felt the wrath previously boiled within him retreating into the furthest recesses of his cowardly soul.

"What will it be, Mr. Smee?"

_**On the snow-speckled surface of the airborne Jolly Roger; a short time later…**_

Ventus sat against the stairs of the deck, wrapped in a heavy coat and drinking from a flask of rum to provide some temporary relief for the heartache and the cold as he stared blankly into the stars and snowfall, dark clouds surrounding the galleon on all sides.

_Rum._ There was another thing Ven would have to give up should he return to apprenticeship under Xehanort. Initially hesitant to try it, the boy had grown fond of alcohol and could hold it with the best of them. Though they were the ones to reluctantly introduce him to it in training him to be a pirate, Ven never wanted Terra and Aqua to see this new side of him and suddenly grew self-conscious of the habit he never gave a second thought of when with the crew. Another part of him was amused at wondering if he'd long since surpassed those two in holding in liquor. No, he was definitely past them. For some reason, that thought depressed him.

Though he now hoped Aqua would allow him to share a bottle of wine with her on special occasions and Terra would take him drinking when he was of legal age, there was a _lot_ he would have to give up. Roughhousing. Marauding. Plundering. Pyromania. The songs. The revelry. The women. The lawlessness. Searching for treasure. Sailor's mouth. Living on the edge. That spirit of unbridled freedom. But most of all, the memories. He couldn't hold onto those sinful memories if he returned to his Keyblade training—they would only sabotage his progress and integrity as a guardian of light.

_If_ he returned.

But there were many dark memories as well. Sights and actions that sickened and corrupted him and stole innocence he didn't know he had left. Such things were unavoidable when sailing on a Heartless ship. But now that the _Jolly Roger_ was only a ship of corpses and Ven still had a respectable reputation among other pirates of various worlds, he could return to them, claim the crew had fallen victim to some horrible disaster in which he was the only survivor, build his notoriety, start a new crew as his own captain with his own ship, and change piracy forever. He wouldn't be a black-hearted captain like the one he served or those he slew, but rather establish himself as a benign and chivalrous bandit who avenged the innocent, offered humanity and safety to those he raided, and kept the peace between the law and the lawless. With his skill, he would rule the seas unopposed, crushing tyrants and reaping all the benefits the pirate's life had to offer.

_Being a chivalrous pirate…never hurting the innocent and only declaring war on the wicked… Would I be the good guy? Would the Keyblade follow me into that kind of lifestyle?_

The more he thought about it, the more Ven became sure of his convictions and measured options previously unconsidered.

_Yeah. As long as my heart's in the right place and I'm doing the right thing, I'll always have Wayward Wind by my side._ —Ven smiled again. —_**Wayward Wind.**__ There's a fine name for a ship. But even with the Keyblade, rallying a good crew and earning their loyalty will take some time. If only I had something to promise them in return…_

Ven's eyes shot open and he knew at once what would finance his enterprise. Limping across the deck and past Smee (who was rounding up the dead bodies per Xehanort's command), Ven hobbled into the captain's quarters, rifling through every desk drawer, cabinet, and chest he could find.

_C'mon, where is it? The map we killed Flint for in the Etherium! The loot of a thousand worlds!_ —After every conventional hiding spot proved fruitless, the blonde Keybearer turned to less conventional methods. That huge landscape painting of Neverland hanging on the wall seemed mighty suspicious…

Seconds later, the gold-framed canvas was lowered to the ground and Ven found the locked vault behind it. Any practical concern earlier raised over using Wayward while still masked in darkness was forgotten as the boy summoned the weapon and used its power to open the vault instantly. And there it was inside: a hand-sized, copper spheroid with various lines and circular markings carved into it. So many had died for that one seemingly insignificant ball, but Ven had seen it in action and knew what incredible means it was capable of. No one in Hook's crew had been able to unlock it as Flint did, but now that Ven was counting on bringing the Keyblade with him into his life of piracy…

He retrieved the spherical device and held it delicately in his hand. So many dreams were projected into that one ball—the key to Ven's future.

_I finally have it. Treasure Planet…_

But harnessing its knowledge would have to wait. Even in euphoria, Ventus knew he wouldn't endure the strain the Keyblade would impose on him to unlock it so long as the pentacle on his back masked his heart in darkness. He would need that thing removed.

"Is that what this was about?" Smee called from the doorway of the captain's quarters, wrapped in a winter coat of his own. Ven turned and found that small creature sniffling with anger and devastation. He continued, "You betrayed us so you could take all that treasure for yourself?"

Startled by the accusation, Ven concealed the looming threat of further heartbreak behind a stoic façade. But his eyes, irritated from rubbing tears away, betrayed his disguise. "No. It was never about the money. Saving Vanitas and stopping Hook was my mission the whole time."

"But _why?_ Is that Mr. Xehanort your _real_ cap'n?"

Ven was astounded at the question. The stoic façade gave way to indignation. "What? No! I am _not_ Xehanort's student! I ran away from home months ago, before even my _last_ master died!"

"Then you did it to save our prisoner? Is he your friend?"

"No way! I never even heard of the guy before this!"

Smee stood astonished at the revelation. "Then…you betrayed us for nothing?" Even on his Shadow half, the old pirate's tears burst from his eyes. "We were your friends, Ventus! We loved you like family!"

Ven _felt_ those words cut into him, push him against the wall, and he hated every second spent confronting his guilt. He chose to deny it instead. "How could I ever be one of you? You're _Heartless!_"

"_You're_ the heartless one, Ventus!"

The pain that pierced him was transparent only for a few seconds. He fought to repress it, his grip against the spherical map intensifying as his whole arm shook. "I…I did this for my friends! Terra and Aqua—the ones taking down the Cap'n—_they're_ the reason I did this. They'd been off-world enough times doing the Masters' bidding to build a reputation. Hook knew their faces, but he never knew mine."

Ventus tried to cool himself. He shoved the map back into the vault and locked it shut, if only to prove the sincerity of his words. "Master Eraqus tried to keep me locked away in that prison he called my home, so there's no way anyone off-world would've recognized me when I ran away. That made me the perfect choice to infiltrate this crew. Nobody else could've done it. If I declined the job and hadn't spent these last two months spying on all of you to draw Hook out and take this ship down from within, that would've meant putting Terra and Aqua in even greater danger—maybe even sending them to their deaths. That's why I did it. To protect _them_. Not for Xehanort, not for Vanitas, not to fight the Heartless, and not to hurt your feelings, but for _them_. I'm sorry I ever believed I was one of you."

Nothing more needed to be said. Smee understood this and reserved his loathing to a glare.

Xehanort called from outside: "Did I say to stop working?" He arose from the steps bridging the deck to the interior of the ship while using a gravity spell to levitate hordes of corpses above him. Vanitas followed (his mask donned and hiding the deformities he suffered in the pirates' custody), hauling husks the old-fashioned way, yet making it seem so easy. That megalixir was especially kind to him. Mr. Smee shivered at his new boss' call and complied, hastily returning to cleanup duty and silently cursing his fate. Xehanort and Vanitas threw the bodies they carried into the main pile. The masked boy took a moment to examine the ship's surroundings.

"Ventus!" Xehanort called, "If you're well enough to walk, you can lend a hand. Search the bodies for anything valuable."

"What the hell is this?!" Vanitas shouted, uncharacteristically alarmed. The others turned to him, surprised at his outburst. "Why are we parked in the middle of what's about to be a thunderstorm?!"

The old man answered, "Ventus assures me this ship has endured far worse."

"Uh-huh," the masked boy continued, unconvinced, "and what about _us?_ This isn't exactly a closed-roof ship—we're out in the open!"

"Just do what _we_ did," Ven chimed in as he hobbled out onto the deck, "don't get hit."

The resentment from that expressionless, black pit of a mask didn't go unnoticed and Ven afforded himself a cheeky smirk. The smile only faded when he reached the first of his old crew's bodies to loot.

"Do you remember how they captured you, Vanitas?" Xehanort asked.

"How could I forget?" the apprentice answered, obviously annoyed. "I would've been able to tear this ship apart if it weren't for that magic shield—" He instantly caught on. "The shield. That's what kept me from entering. It's why I was caught off-guard and so easily overwhelmed…why we needed Ventus to go undercover in the first place."

"Exactly," the Master replied. "And it is that same shield which now protects us from the elements. It's how Hook's crew managed to traverse so many hostile environments without ever suffering so much as a scratch. Not even the merciless void of space can penetrate a barrier such as this."

"Nifty," Vanitas commented wryly.

Xehanort took a moment to inspect the dark clouds enveloping them. "Hook really couldn't have chosen a better spot to hide this vessel. "It's far out of the civilians' view and no telescope could penetrate these clouds. That works well for us. This world does not yet know life exists beyond its simple domains and it's our duty as off-worlders not to meddle with their lives and understanding. Not until they themselves achieve first contact with the worlds beyond."

"Or the Heartless force our hand," Vanitas added.

"And even then," the Master continued, "like now, we keep ourselves hidden from sight and wage our war in secret. The last thing we need is for the ignorant masses to panic and obstruct our efforts. But if the Heartless go public, then so will we. We arm these people with knowledge and resources only when urgency demands it." Xehanort turned, "That is our mission, Ventus. To discover, traverse, and save new worlds all throughout the cosmos from the Heartless invasion. Would that not be adventure enough for you?"

Ven was surprised to hear the master address him, let alone answer his plight. Yet, he couldn't answer.

Though still bitter, Mr. Smee appreciated the older man's words. "You've a noble goal, Mr. Xehanort sir. A shame you had to deceive and slaughter so many of us to see it through."

The master answered the stout half-Shadow wrapped in a heavy winter coat, "Despite your appearance, you lack the bearings of either pirate or Heartless. Your efforts will be put to better use preserving worlds rather than destroying them."

Similar to Ven, Mr. Smee hadn't expected his captor to answer his plight with such kindness and generosity. And for his conflicting feelings, he also didn't know how to answer.

Vanitas couldn't care less if the two pirates joined them or not.

No, he'd definitely prefer if they didn't. Especially after the last two months.

He turned for the steps to return below deck. "Gonna get some more stragglers," the masked boy said, referring to the next wave of pirate corpses. "You coming, old man?"

He was met only with silence.

"Old man?" he called again, then turned to see what held back his master.

Xehanort stood frozen, trembling in fear and awe as he stared off into the mass of black clouds surrounding them. Vanitas knew his master long enough to understand he'd sensed something, and for him of all people to tremble at a force of nature or whatever lay concealed within it, the masked boy knew to be afraid. He reached out with his senses into the black mass. A choked gasp and then he, too, froze in terror, nearly losing his balance.

Ven and Smee caught wind of the others' terror and gradually became afraid, for they couldn't understand what sort of threat struck them so.

"Hey, what is it? What's gotten into you two?" Ven called, worry tinging his voice.

There was a slow, heavy movement of lumbering mass inside the black clouds and an inhuman groan emanating from within. With difficulty, Xehanort raised his quivering hand to point at the source of the invisible disturbance. His words were a choked whisper. "Its…right there. Could it be…? Oh my…"

Panicked, Ven ran up to the old man and shook him by his shoulders. "What? What is it? Tell us what you see!"

Small Mr. Smee tugged at Ven's sleeve. When the blonde Keybearer turned to him, he could see the demi-Heartless also pointing into the black, as shivering and speechless as the others. Ven quickly turned and froze, terror-stricken at the ghastly shape outlined by the cloud's internal lightning. Against every shred of his better judgment, he swore he recognized the disfigured form of the monstrosity whose size tripled that of the _Jolly Roger_. A slow, haunting sound resonated from the beast.

_Tick…tock…tick…tock…_

Ven could barely keep himself from screaming, eyes and mouth agape as he shuddered in a cold sweat.

_But that's impossible! We killed it!_

His back bumped into Xehanort, who reflexively held him steady with his hand.

"Th—th—the crocodile!" Mr. Smee almost ineligibly jabbered in terror.

Ven turned once again to Smee, anger rising to fight against the fear. "No, there's no way it could be! We killed it, Smee! Twice, even: once when we hunted it down, and again when its Heartless hunted _us_ down, so don't you dare tell me it's somehow still alive, especially when it was never this _big_ and never knew how to _fly!_"

Xehanort's grasp on Ven's shoulder tightened. Though his voice was calm, his yellow eyes were wild and his skin had paled. "You say you killed this beast twice? Both its natural form and its Heartless?"

Ven answered, his voice sounding more like a desperate plea than a statement of facts. "Yes, I was there! It can't still be alive…it…it can't…"

The old man's visage darkened, an attempt to steady himself. "I was afraid of this. My boy, there is much you've yet to learn about the Heartless. As you know, when a creature loses its heart to Darkness, it becomes a Heartless, a corrupt and murderous being whose sole purpose is to destroy Light and life wherever it finds it. But do you know what becomes of the body left behind when the heart abandons it?"

Ventus couldn't answer and it was for this lack of knowledge that his fears seized tighter on him.

Xehanort continued. "It becomes a Nobody. The Heartless' departed husk is possessed and corrupted by another power: Nothingness."

Ven grew indignat at the lecture. "'Nothingness?' 'Nobody?' You can't tell me that thing out there is _nothing!_"

"No, not 'nothing,' boy. _Nothingness_: the power which resides between Light and Dark and is an enemy of both. I've had limited experience with the Nobodies in my travels before Eraqus' passing, but I know enough." Then he was silent for a moment, contemplating something. "What was this creature's goal in life?"

"What?" Ven asked. "Why does it matter?"

"Notice how the beast has yet to attack us or even leave its cover. With its size and supposed power, it could decimate this entire ship in seconds. Not even the magical field would stop it. But it only waits. It may have been biding its time here for hours. But for what, I don't know. Was there any primary motive it had in its previous two lives?"

Mr. Smee answered, still stuttering from fear, "Well, the c—crocodile h—has been hunting the c—cap'n for years. Ev—ever since it gobbled up his hand, it's been following us in the h—hopes of eating the rest of him."

"That was its mission in life?" Xehanort asked. "What about as a Heartless?"

"I—it was much more fierce in its methods, M—Mr. Xehanort s—sir. It would destroy entire vessels searching for us a—and killed many of our crew even though we, too, w—were at least p—part Heartless, but its m—motive s—seemed much the same."

"It still desired the life of your captain?"

Smee nodded.

Xehanort grunted softly. "That is a remarkably strong will, that it could transcend even death. A Nobody is not so wild or unintelligent in nature as a Heartless. Maybe our friend knows what he seeks isn't onboard this vessel. He may only be waiting for the captain's return." He smirked. "He's in for a long wait."

Minutes passed of breathless anticipation, of spine-chilling ticking and tocking from the warped and enlarged alarm clock within the warped and enlarged beast, then the gargantuan contour of the crocodile, illuminated by the intermittent lightning, slowly turned and drifted away, shrinking further into the dense blackness to seek his prize elsewhere.

_Tick…tock…tick…tock…_

Until it was out of sight.

A wave of relief washed over the four living souls on the _Jolly Roger's_ deck, all scarcely believing they'd avoided such a narrow brush with death. Then a realization struck Vanitas.

"Wait, if that thing's after Hook and he's down in the city…"

The four were horror-struck again, understanding just what lengths the Nobody titan of a crocodile might take to finally end the captain.

Xehanort answered, "Then we may have failed in some considerable part of our mission. If the Nobody doesn't destroy the world below, its mere apparition will reveal far more to these people than they are ready to know."

"And Terra and Aqua…!" Ven added, "If they're with the captain or were the last ones near him…"

"They might have his scent, and with it, the beast's attention," the old master replied. "And none of us present are in any condition or of any appearance to head below and warn them without raising suspicion from the masses. That leaves us with two options available: either we attempt to delay the beast in the cover of these storm clouds before it terrorizes the world below and more than likely lose our lives in the process…or we do nothing and leave the extent and probability of the consequences to chance."


	5. Warning from a Dying Man

_**Chapter Five: Warning from a Dying Man**_

_**The streets of London; that same, wintry night…**_

Terra couldn't fly on his Keyblade-glider or use magic to accelerate himself without further panicking the crowds on the street, so all he could do to pursue the burned and defaced demi-Heartless that was James Hook through the scared, ignorant masses was run. Run for all he was worth on the cobblestone streets past startled citizens in evening attire or rags, narrowly dodging in-between or maneuvering above early models of automobiles and horse-drawn carriages amid startled oaths and curses from those he and the captain bumped into.

But he was falling behind. With his right eye missing and left cheek deeply cut, the tarnished image of young Xehanort had the discomfort of his own seeping blood to contend against. A few intermittent casts of Cure stopped enough of the bleeding to make pursuit manageable, yet he cursed his present inability to apply any magic to hasten his speed.

_Can't let these people see. They're already confused. Just the sight of me and Hook is enough to give them something to talk about for weeks. But I can't chance revealing powers beyond this world to them. They're not ready. If I can save this world's innocence on top of stopping Hook, I'll do it, no matter how much I'll hate myself for it._

Yet in moments, surrounded on all sides by honking and swerving automobiles and panicked horses drawing their carriages, Terra caught Hook by the back of his tuxedo jacket and, under the cover of heavy traffic, materialized Earthshaker to skewer him through the gizzard. Panicked, disfigured Hook attempted to ditch the coat. He avoided the Keyblade's lunge by veering to the side after partially disrobing, but his hook-hand was caught in the left jacket sleeve, leaving the two enemies connected by an infernal article of clothing.

Terra attempted to reel him in with one hand, already preparing the next swing of his blade, but as he did so, the demi-Heartless drew his own sword, charged and strengthened by darkness, and the blades clashed there in the streets. Linked by the jacket and obstructed by traffic, the two continued to thrust, swing, and riposte at one another in their unorthodox dance with civilians taking concerned note of the murderous performers. This duel in the street, combined with vocal hearsays of a "fire" breaking out in the Royal Opera House, gave the people considerable reason to worry.

At length, Hook severed the sleeve which hindered his iron appendage and again fled from his target after discharging a burst of dark fire from the sole of his boot, blasting Terra in the chest and knocking him from his feet. The crowd gasped at the magical display, hardly believing their eyes.

_Guess the cat's out of the bag. _—Terra pondered and then discharged a light frost spell over the burnt area, stopping the dark flames yet leaving the suit he borrowed from Xehanort charred beyond repair. Not to mention the blast hurt like hell.

Leaping to his feet, he scanned the area and spied the captain retreating for a large, upper-class civilian home, crushing his way through the front door. A woman stifled a scream from within and a man swore in surprise. Alarmed by the new crisis, Terra used his magic to dash for the invaded home and caught sight of Hook slashing across the man of the house's belly with a single swing of his evil sword. The wife screamed in terror and Hook bolted for the stairs beyond where the man once stood.

"George!" Mary Darling called for her mortally wounded husband. Terra finally made it inside the house, torn over whether to assist the dying man pooling blood on the floor or stop Hook while he had a clear shot of his back as he sped up those stairs. He decided he could do both.

In the urgency of the moment, Terra threw his Keyblade with all his strength at the captain, impaling him through his right shoulder blade and knocking him off his feet, face-first onto the steps near the top of the stairway. The Keybearer then turned his attention to George Darling on the floor, kneeling beside him and placing both hands on the gaping wound over his stomach. The wife made no protest, but only watched in horror and hope as the silver-haired stranger exclaimed "Heal!" from his lips and somehow discharged a strong wave of restorative energy unto her husband.

Gloved hands bloodied, Terra stood abruptly to his feet, his one eye leaving the confused, recovering patient and his wife for the mangled captain slowly, desperately crawling his way to the top of the stairs to retrieve his dropped sword. The young man fumed through his teeth, outraged that the pirate would so casually attempt another murder for his long list of offenses. But then, that was hardly the worst he witnessed the madman do.

_I'll make him pay for what he did to Destiny Islands._

Such were Terra's thoughts as he marched up those stairs to finish off his target.

He wrapped his blood-soaked gloves around Earthshaker's grip and jerked it out from Hook's back, prompting a lurch and moan from the dying monster. Were that man still human, he would've died on the first impact. Terra turned him over with his foot so he could see the captain's eyes in those final moments. He looked pathetic. Face charred and all hair on his head burned away, Terra found himself disgusted at the cretin beneath him, those baleful eyes now quivering and cowardly.

"What did Xehanort promise you?" the pirate pleaded desperately. "Was it wealth?—power? It's all lies! He'll betray you just as he did me!"

"You know _nothing_ of my master." Terra seethed and he raised the Keyblade above his head to prepare the finishing strike.

"Don't! Listen to me, boy! Whatever Xehanort's promised you, I'll double it! Triple it! I have the means to do so—only spare me and I'll give you whatever you want!"

Terra knew what he wanted. He saw in his mind all the downtrodden faces of the hundreds of refugees fresh off the ship from what was once Destiny Islands. All the hopelessness in their eyes as they were packed into the ghettos in the lower district of Radiant Garden…

"You can _never_ give back what you stole, Hook."

Earthshaker began its descent for the captain's black heart…

—And changed course at the last second to parry Hook's dropped sword, sent flying for Terra by a shadowy tendril he failed to notice at work when speaking to Hook moments ago. Though the dark sword's flight was altered, it wasn't enough and stabbed through the right side of Terra's abdomen, shocking him still on impact. The pirate took full advantage of the turnabout and sank his hook into his assassin's right thigh, prompting him to lurch over from the pain. And with Terra so bent over, James Hook regripped his sword and thrust-kicked Terra from its blade, sending him crashing to the bottom of the stairs.

The same dark tendrils which sent Hook's sword to his aid lifted the pirate from his back and onto his feet, where he stood at the top of the staircase and looked down on his would-be assassin, now believing he could win this. Not enough time had passed for the Keybearer's curing abilities to recharge, leaving him practically helpless in his wounds.

Hook smiled._ Xehanort underestimated me. Already I vanquished the blue-haired one back in the theatre, and now I've his decoy completely at my mercy._

Terra struggled to regain himself. Looking up, he beheld the sight of Hook charging a bolt of dark lightning from his sword, preparing to fire on him, a wicked leer adorning his burnt face.

A gunshot whizzed across the surface of Hook's throat then, making him gag and stagger back in alarm. He turned to the bullet's point of origin and found Mary Darling aiming a still-smoking hunting rifle at him, her husband slowly returning to his feet and congratulating her on the shot.

Hook was indignant and turned his projectile-charged sword at the young couple. Black, Heartless blood seeped from his neck as he spoke. "How dare you, you blithering bilge—!"

Terra rushed into him before he could fire, catapulting himself with a strong wind spell so that he wouldn't tax his wounded abdomen and leg, and as the dark bolt flew harmlessly over the Darlings' heads, the two combatants crashed their way through the door into the nursery and separated as they rolled onto the floor. Their commotion prompted a cry from the room's original occupant in her cradle.

They could hear Mary's terrified shout from below, "Wendy!" followed soon by hers and George's rapid footsteps up the flight of stairs.

Scurrying to regain their footing, Terra and Hook found themselves locked in combat yet again, now far more bloodied and exhausted than before. But still they tangled, blades groggily clashing as they found maintaining balance to be a battle in and of itself. Poor, young Wendy's cries did little for their concentration. The Darlings stood wary at the doorway, unable to take a shot at the pirate or safely cross the room to secure their infant daughter.

A short time into the fray, the swordsmen found their blades deadlocked against one another while the captain's hook was held off by Terra's other hand, trapped in a contest of strength when they had none left to spare. Terra relied on wit instead and struck the demi-Heartless' face with the hilt of Earthshaker, driving the pirate back against the large window at the far end of the room but at the cost of the Keybearer's own balance. Hook steadied himself after hitting the glass portal when his metal appendage caught onto the side of Wendy's crib. His proximity to their child made the risk far too great for the Darlings to fire again. When Hook and Terra realized the situation, the pirate instantly seized the infant by the nape of her clothing with his hook and leveled the sword to her throat. The parents screamed at once.

"Not another step, Keybearer, or I silence the brat permanently." He looked past him and at the Darlings, "And I suggest you two lower the gun. You'll never make the shot."

Terra froze immediately, scowling at the monster that dared bring a suckling between their blades. "I'm not surprised you'd sink this low. How many trillions of lives have you destroyed in your Heartless campaign?"

Hook unlatched the lock to the large window and swung it open, never removing his eyes from Terra and keeping Wendy within blade's reach. "I do what I must to survive, even if that means slaughtering countless innocents in the name of the dark overlords Xehanort betrayed me to. _He_ is the real monster—not me. I suggest you take a closer look at the master you've pledged your allegiance to, but you'll never heed my word for it. So stay his puppet and tell yourself he'll never double-cross you. Then remember my words when you find yourself on the opposite end of his schemes: trapped behind the Door to Darkness or dead in a puddle somewhere."

"Don't you dare try to justify your actions!" Terra shouted back. "You could've resisted the dark power—killed yourself if you had to. No sane reasoning can _ever_ warrant the extent of destruction you've caused.

Hook stepped one leg onto the windowsill, visibly aching from every wound he sustained that night.

_What is he planning?_—Terra mused. _That's a three-story drop. He'd never survive it like this. Is he counting on his dark power to save him or is he simply going mad?_

Hook continued, "Judge me while you can, boy. One day, you'll become me—" A deafening crack of the rifle, then Hook's head jolted backward, black blood spraying from the back of his skull and out the open window.

George Darling held the steaming gun in his grasp. The situation demanded the accuracy he'd spent years refining from all those hunting expeditions with his superiors in the African wilderness. Mary understood this and handed him the weapon during Hook's prattle. The demi-Heartless was so consumed in his thoughts of Terra and mad hopes of escape that he hadn't thought the Darlings more than a slight distraction. And now, as the pirate fell backwards in the windowsill with Wendy still affixed to his bladed appendage, George screamed at Terra, "Catch her, you fool!"

Terra fought against every force of pain surging through him and dashed for the window, grasping Wendy by the front of her pajamas as the demi-Heartless' hook tore free of her back collar. There was a sickening thud and a splash of fluids below at the end of the three-story fall, but all Terra kept his eyes on was the wailing child he'd narrowly prevented from becoming just another name on a monument to Hook's destruction. Forgetting the pain searing through him, Terra afforded a light smile and pulled Wendy back into the safety of the nursery, her mother waiting to hold her tightly in her arms. Then Terra allowed himself to succumb to his wounds and slid down against the wall into a seated position, exhaling much deserved relief.

George peered out the window and at the unmoving corpse of the defaced pirate, an alarmed crowd gathering below. Then the father backed away from the window, locked it shut, and looked down on the one-eyed, silver-haired Keybearer bleeding in his nice, clean nursery and spoke in a calm voice that masked his terror. "You saved my life, young man, and that of my daughter as well. For that, I'm grateful. But I would much desire some answers here. Who are you? Who was he? And what were you doing in my home?"

Terra could only breathe, scarcely able to form words. "You'll have to give me a moment." He attempted the spell, "Hea—" but his words fell short, every injury sustained that night catching up to him.

"Don't strain yourself, lad," George said. He turned to his wife, "Mary, bring him the medical kit. I'll take care of Wendy."

"But, George," Mary replied, "shouldn't we take him to a hospital? Just look at the state of his wounds."

"He can't give us information if he's locked away in some emergency room. Now please, bring us the medical kit."

Mary nodded. George set the rifle against the wall and took crying Wendy from his wife's arms as she raced for a cabinet at the opposite end of the room and rifled through it for the necessary supplies.

Some of Terra's blood seeped onto the tip of George's shoe. He wasn't pleased. "The whole cabinet if you must, Mary!"

"If you'll just give me a moment, dear!"

Terra strained to get the words out of his mouth. "H—_heal_."

And the green aura followed suit, mending just enough of the damage to his body to make speech and movement easier. _Oh, that feels better._

Mary returned with the box of medical supplies and did her best to tend to the remainder of the young man's wounds. George rocked Wendy gently in his arms to hush her cries and then spoke again to Terra, "Now, we'll have some answers. And don't try to deceive us. You possess miraculous powers which have never been seen beyond biblical times, wield weapons unlike any humankind has ever forged. The man you fought spoke of 'doors to darkness' and you accused him of murdering some trillion-odd souls. I know for a fact there are no such powers and not nearly quite so many people on this Earth, so you tell me the _whole_ truth."

Terra wondered just how much he should tell them as Mary opened his formal jacket and shirt to treat the stab wound in his abdomen and he juggled various lies and half-truths in his mind—and even then, was unsure of where to start—before deciding he couldn't fool them.

They deserved to know.

He started from the beginning.

"This world has been connected…"

_**Meanwhile, in London's Royal Opera House…**_

The Giga Orcus' colossal blade crashed down upon Rainfell; Aqua caught the titan's weapon with her own, the ground cratering beneath her feet on impact. The armor she wore absorbed most of the shock and her own magical prowess gave her the strength she needed to endure battling the dark titan.

Then, she asserted her own strength against that of the Heartless and swung her Keyblade to bat its sword away. With the giant enemy now exposed, Aqua leaped high and repeatedly slashed the monster's face, jolting it off-balance and forcing it back until it collapsed on the stage, crushing the podium beneath its weight. _Standard Invisible, triple-sized Orcus, or even Darkside, the head is always the weak spot._ That was the one thought coursing through the Keyblade Master's mind as she descended on the fallen beast from the air to split its head apart.

Her victory was denied when the giant Orcus swung her aside mid-descent with a forceful backhand and she skidded hard against columns of seats in the second-story balcony. She gathered herself onto her hands and knees and, upon looking up, beheld the titan's gigantic blade plunging straight for her. She leapt aside, the hellish sword obliterating the space where she once stood, and she continued running across the balcony with the Heartless swinging his weapon after her, razing the seats and décor into clouds of dust in that second-story terrace. When the crashing blade reached mere inches from her, Aqua darted for the edge of the balcony, against its low barrier, and ricocheted onto the floor above. The Heartless swung a second time, almost demolishing her in the blow, but she jumped again upward and vaulted atop the fourth-story balcony—high enough that her giant assailant would need all four of his wings to reach her. Such is what he did. He in the air and she on the high ground, their clash of blades and exchanges of magic continued.

_I just can't shake this guy. _–She pondered against the flurry of his strikes—_He's always right behind me. And for all this size, he hasn't lost a bit of his Invisible's speed. I'd hate to see him become a Darkside._

She cartwheeled aside, narrowly dodging an explosion of dark flame and freezing the Giga Orcus' sword-wielding hand with a strong ice-blast from Rainfell.

_I need to put a stop to this. Hope I've got enough power charged up by now._

The Heartless briefly disoriented by its frozen appendage, Aqua gave Rainfell an advanced command, "Bladecharge!"

At once, a strong, violet and white energy surged to envelop herself and her Keyblade in its power, Rainfell being encased in a seven-foot longsword of pure light—not half as large as the Orcus' weapon, but size was no longer a deciding factor.

In the next blinding instant, Bladecharged Rainfell crashed down on the Orcus' frozen wrist, shattering it from its body and separating the Heartless from its weapon. It howled in pain—something Aqua never heard a Heartless do—and reeled back its amputated stump. With Rainfell elongated and amplified, the Orcus' torso was now in striking range. The Keybearer seized the chance and repeatedly swung her mighty weapon to slash and burn across the giant's chest, releasing spurts of liquid-fog blackness from its wounds—presumably blood. Retreating back in the air to be free of Aqua's reach, the screeching Giga Orcus launched an immense globe of volatile dark energy from its remaining hand. With difficulty under the projectile's force and magnitude, the armored Keybearer parried the colossal ball of evil flame, sending it exploding into the roof, opening the half-century-old Opera House to the overcast night sky.

Smoke and debris falling between the distant enemies, Aqua used her magic to track the Orcus' location. With the target locked, she swung her arm back and then tossed Bladecharged Rainfall through the air, skewering the light-encased longsword through the left side of the Heartless' face. He staggered back in anguish and crashed atop the balconies on the opposite side of the theatre, collapsing the structures and plummeting through the wreckage until he hit the ground.

When the last of the ceiling's debris fell, Aqua looked on at the massive pile of rubble which buried the giant. She retracted her helmet so that her sweat-matted face and hair could feel the breeze of the cool night air. _That's three stories right on top of him. No way he survived._

She swiftly made her way down and approached the rubble-hillock where the Heartless and the Keyblade in its skull lay buried. With Rainfall beckoning her, she knew exactly where to find the weapon. Atop the vast mound, near its apex, Aqua paused in her steps, crouched down with a hand on the debris for support, and plunged an armored hand through the wreckage, seizing Rainfell in her grasp and heaving it free above her head, the weapon now returned to its default form. The Heartless' dusky liquid-fog coated the weapon and cascaded in an arc before the Keybearer, splashing upon her face, hair, and armor at Rainfell's release.

Looking down the small burrow she created, Aqua found the giant's shadow-black head staring lifelessly up at her, the left half of its face obliterated. She sighed in relief and prepared to leave.

"You have not won, Key-woman," a booming, echoing voice called from the Orcus' permanently agape mouth.

Her attention arrested, Aqua jolted her gaze back down the arm's length hole and gawked at the beast which defied all laws of death. Its remaining eye glowed, not its typical subdued aura, but an abundant flood of yellow light. _Is this thing still alive?! …No, the mouth doesn't move when he speaks. And his eye…this must be another being using this Heartless as a medium._

"James Hook is but one of many," the voice continued from the unmoving maw. "The Heartless have forged numerous alliances across the realms and already dozens of worlds have fallen. The loss of one servant and his crew is nothing against the power you will soon face."

"Who are you?" Aqua interrogated, her voice calm and commanding. "You're not the Invisible I slew. You must be channeling this message through him from another location."

A disconcerting laugh from the frozen, fanged maw, then the voice resumed, "You catch on quickly, Key-woman."

"My name is _Master_ Aqua," she asserted.

"Names and titles will soon be meaningless to your kind, wretched wielder," the demon channeled. "In _weeks_, your people shall never again see sunlight. Only Darkness will rule these lands and I will personally see to it that you are among the fallen. For I am the last thing the worlds will ever see: Chernabog, Bringer of Death in service to the Dark Lords."

_Chernabog._ Something about his name—the way his unearthly voice spoke it—sent a wave of chills tingling through Aqua's spine. She fought to stay composed against her body that knew to be afraid when her heart did not.

"This form you've destroyed is only one in a limitless sea of hosts that will lay down their lives for my will," Chernabog said. "I cannot be killed. I cannot be touched. But you, Keyblade Master, you are flesh and blood. You exist in the physical realm and so are within my reach. _You can be killed_."

"The funny thing about you Heartless," Aqua shot back, "the farther you step from the shadows, the weaker you become. Out here, away from your Realm of Darkness, you're nothing: just another stain on my Keyblade."

The Heartless messenger chuckled. "But you forget: the closer you stand to the light, the greater your shadow becomes. And right now, you pride yourself in being an anointed child of the Light, oblivious to the Darkness that festers behind your back." A pause to relish in his own words, then the demon spoke again, "It's been there all along, but faith in your allies and your own abilities has blinded you to its presence. The Darkness grows and so shall consume you. _He_ shall be your undoing…"

With that, Chernabog released his medium, his mind returned to the faraway realm of shadows, and the Orcus corpse crumbled and faded away into darkness.

Aqua released a tense sigh, only realizing then she'd held her breath. She stepped back, trod away from the mountain of destruction, and deactivated her armor under the vast hole in the ceiling, exposing herself to the winter night's air and light snowfall. Lingering on Chernabog's parting words, she forgot about the cold, how eviscerated and charred her evening gown and elbow gloves were, and the frost nipped at the slight burns and lacerations on her bare arms and face. She'd brought a coat with her, but Hook had no doubt blown it to kingdom come when he deployed that bomb.

"_He" will be my undoing? Festering Darkness? What is he talking about? There's nobody in my life that's tampered with Darkness. He must be lying. He __**has**__ to be._

Then she remembered: _But…we had to cloak Ventus in Darkness to mask him from the Heartless. He's been in the Darkness for the past seven weeks…what if it's corrupted him?_—She shook her head. _No, his heart's too strong to let it take him. If any of us have betrayed the Light, it's Xehanort—all those "travels" he's been on, and he's the one who masked Ven in the first place! Then we got his crony, Vanitas, and God only knows what that boy and his Unversed are into. To make things worse, Vanitas has been in Heartless captivity longer than Ven's been undercover. If anyone's been overtaken by Darkness, it's him._

But as she formed the perfect arguments to blame the old man and his henchman, another, far more recent image entered her mind. It was of Terra, moments before Hook threw the bomb. To save their lives, Terra unleashed a bolt of fire from his Keyblade that Aqua assumed killed the captain. But she caught just a slight enough glimpse to ascertain that was no ordinary fire; it was _dark._

The memory and understanding nauseated her: all the men in her life had a connection with the Darkness in one form or another.

_Terra…no…it can't possibly be you—_

Her eyes shot open. "Terra!" She at once turned back to the demolished box above where she'd last seen her injured friend before the bomb separated them. Unfortunately, his previous location was now just another floor lost in the mass of wreckage.

She stood petrified, too afraid of what she might find to start digging.

Then, a shadow loomed over her. The snowfall stopped. An inhuman groan rumbled far overhead and the weight of the source's presence horrified Aqua to her very core.

_Tick…tock…tick…tock…_

Slowly prying her gaze upward, she gasped in terror, bringing a hand to her mouth as she beheld the Nobody crocodile slowly departing from the clouds for her and the entire city to see. The beast of nightmares hovered as a ghost-white monstrosity three times the size of the _Jolly Roger_: warped and deformed, physically adapted to make nearly every scale-covered inch of itself lethal to physical touch and impervious to any weapon. Its eyes were hungry black voids and its mouth a cavern of towering, indestructible teeth and unholy fire. Upon its back and tail protruded a row of tall, spinal blades, all capable of shredding apart any fortress or battlement. One could only imagine the strength possessed in each of its twelve legs, six on each side.

Aqua staggered back, lost her balance, and fell on her backside, her arms catching and propping her up before her back could hit the ground. Her eyes widened in the fear that now shook all of London.

The city screamed, but Aqua was deaf to all but her own soul's cries.

The hushed words barely left her mouth. "What…is that…?"

The beast's abysmal eyes studied her. Its snout rustled, seeming to search for something. Whatever it was, it led him to Aqua. The titan slowly reared its head downward, Aqua gasping and trembling as it descended nearer, until it landed on the ground, demolishing what remained of the roof and much of the walls and shaking the very foundation of the Opera House under its immense weight; the Nobody's horizon-sized face was mere inches from hers. Heart beating violently fast in her chest, the blue-haired woman forgot just briefly that she was a Keyblade Master—quite possibly the most powerful one alive as far as she knew.

But only briefly.

Battling against every overwhelming surge of fear that would've killed a lesser being, Aqua tightened her grip around Rainfell, and with that, her brave, righteous scowl returned to face the giant sniffing her to determine if she was the target it sought.

"My name…is Master Aqua," she choked out in hushed defiance at the monster, heart still pounding at a million beats per second. "You will not hurt me, my friends, or any innocent soul under my protection. Turn back now, or face the consequences—"

Almost as if on cue, the crocodile abruptly swung its head to the pile of wreckage beside the Keyblade Master, sniffing further and no longer caring for the woman before it. Its pupils dilated. It found the scent. And so, the great lizard took flight once more over London, pursuing whatever its objective was through the jungle of cobblestone and concrete and leaving Aqua behind to drown in the weight of nightmares.

The city screamed, and this time Aqua heard its every bloodcurdling shriek. Shaking, she returned to her feet, eyed the mound of rubble the monster discarded—where she feared Terra may have been buried—then returned her focus to the threat at hand, activating her armor and flying after the monster on her Keyblade-glider.

* * *

><p>George Darling was the one to finally kill Captain Hook. I <em>really<em> hope someone saw the massive irony in that.


	6. Nightmare over London

I really did put some of what we millennials pass off as "time and effort" into researching thundersnows, the nature and mechanics of lightning, and planetary atmospheres because I stress out a _lot_ about accuracy and _really_ want this to be as scientifically accurate as a science-fantasy story is allowed to be. Still, while science is _awesome_, it's also my worst subject _ever_ and I'd appreciate it if someone science-savvy would meticulously point out every science-related thing I got wrong or right here so I can learn from this and not insult your intelligences any longer. SCIENCE!

* * *

><p><em><strong>Chapter Six: Nightmare over London<strong>_

_**The nursery, on the third story of the Darling residence…**_

"That's quite the tale you weave," George charged Terra, "but do you really expect us to believe such poppycock?"

Mary, now holding Wendy after she finished mending Terra's wounds, stared incredulously at her husband. "George, after the things we've seen, how can you doubt this man's testimony?"

"Heartless, Keyblades, and doors to other worlds," George mused, "I'll readily accept that there are forces we don't understand at work here," he turned to Terra "—not the least of which being that sword you carry around," then back to Mary "—but how can we so gullibly believe they're as larger-than-life as the lad says? He's shown us evidence of _some_ of the supernatural powers he mentioned, and I'm grateful for what he's done for us, but we've yet to see any proof of these greater forces which he speaks of. That hook-handed lunatic may have only been an escaped invalid who dabbled in black magic, rather than some 'Heartless general' who commands an 'army of darkness.' Just where is this army? And what of these other worlds?—are we to believe life exists on every star in the sky simply because this man—this supposed 'space alien'—tells us so?"

Terra mumbled, "I…never considered myself a space alien before, but when you put it like that—"

Mary countered her husband, "But you yourself demanded to know what he was talking about when he spoke with Hook about those things. You wanted to know how trillions of lives could've been lost when we don't have anywhere near that many people on Earth, but now that he mentions there being life on other worlds, it starts to make sense."

"Yet, the more I consider those things he and that 'Heartless' mentioned in passing," George returned, "the more probable it seems they were only using wild hyperboles to throw us off their _real_ trail, whatever that may be, as professional liars do. These fantastical elements in his story may only be a cover-up for something happening right here on our _own_ world. He could be a secret serviceman tracking England's enemies and throwing off witnesses with red herrings of outlandish tales. Or perhaps he's a spy gathering intelligence for the Germans for this blasted naval arms race—no good can come of all these recent militarizations and alliances, I'm telling you. The world's already in such a volatile state and perhaps on the brink of all-out war that it's not so difficult to believe he could be _anyone_ working for _any _government and who knows how that may endanger us or all of England in the long-run? I'll not swallow this 'spaceman' tale so easily when other, far more plausible explanations exist."

Mary sighed as she gently rocked Wendy in her arms to help calm the infant. "George, you're making baseless accusations toward a man who's done nothing but help us. What does it matter where he comes from or what he believes in? He could be a wizard, a spy, or a spaceman for all I care, but that doesn't change that he saved your life and our daughter's."

George opened his mouth to retort, but thought better of it. At last, he groaned in exhaustion and looked again at the bandaged Keybearer sitting on the nursery floor. "I'm sorry for appearing inhospitable towards you, young man. But please try to understand I'm only concerned for my family's safety, and your story isn't without its questionable elements. It's not every day a pair of sorcerers break into my home and make a mess of things like this. Now, we've a madman's corpse plastered on our front yard and that's sure to draw attention from the neighbors and the police. Ah, well. But my wife is right. You did save us and that should be enough. Thank you."

Terra grinned through the pain. It was an almost surreal vision for the married couple to see a man with oddly silver hair, a missing right eye, fresh scar on his left cheek, and other recent wounds genuinely smiling in all his misfortune. Perhaps there really was something otherworldly to this visitor. "Mr. Darling," Terra started, "you have to be the most intelligent and skeptical-minded person I've ever disclosed the secrets of the universe to." _He could even give King Triton a run for his money._ Then he turned to Mary with that same smile, "And you, Mrs. Darling, you're probably the most kind-hearted and progressive-thinking emissary of a pre-Gummi society we've ever made first-contact with. Your daughter has a wonderful pair of role models looking after her."

Half-lifting his arm a moment, the Keybearer noted the blood on his gloved hand—George's blood from the gash Hook left in his stomach that Terra healed—and wiped most of the mess on the pant leg of the suit he borrowed from Xehanort and re-extended his arm to George for a handshake as Mary was occupied holding Wendy. "I'm Terra, by the way."

In all the excitement, the last thing the Darlings expected was a formal introduction from the bizarre visitor. Momentarily unsure, George recomposed himself and shook Terra's hand with his own. "You can call me George. How do you do?"

"Lousy," Terra answered with a smirk. "But pleased to make your acquaintance." Even in pain, Eraqus' former student understood gallantry.

"I'm Mary," the wife greeted, "and this is our daughter, Wendy."

"Charmed," Terra replied. He looked again at the three, and in the sentiment of the moment, it wasn't so difficult to envision himself in George's place, and standing beside him, where Mary held Wendy, he saw…

His heart warmed at the thought. "You're a beautiful family."

A distant sound, almost like the muffled ticking of a clock, followed by a distant human shriek, almost beyond hearing range, caught Terra's ear. His eyes widened slightly at the barely perceived disturbance, then more voices joined the discord and the Darlings could hear it too, alarming all in the nursery.

"What could that be?" Mary wondered, fear steadily creeping on her.

"More of your Heartless?" George suggested to Terra, only half-cynical.

Terra grunted. "Help me up," then he and George clasped arms and the father aided him to his feet, holding and allowing the Keybearer to lean against him for support, never minding the seeping blood which now sullied his own clothes. Though the distant shape beyond the window remained indiscernible, the three adults in the room fathomed a vast, white mass which hovered in the night sky. In the horror-filled seconds that followed as the being slithered ever closer through the air, a gargantuan fanged maw was comprehended by the onlookers, followed by two black, hungry, beady eyes, then a large, protruding spinal column and an extensive tail at the end of it that demolished the tops of structures high and near enough to be caught in the beast's peripheral flight path, scattering heavy debris in every direction onto the streets and into other buildings, endangering the people below. Every second the ghastly vision of the titanic crocodile from Hell glided nearer and the splitting cacophony of screams and police whistles woke London into a nightmare come true, the spectators in the nursery grew ever weaker in their knees under the overwhelming surge of terror. That monster was clearly flying towards them. Its jaws slowly opened and a low, unearthly growl shook the city.

Hands full with her child, willpower alone stifled Mary's intermittent shrieks and Terra felt George losing breath at his side. Remembering his obligation as their protector, the silver-haired man turned to them, "We need to leave _right now_," he urged with calm intensity. Mary seemed to hear him, but George only trembled and paled, stumbling Terra and forcing the wounded Keybearer to act as George's support. He clutched a hand at the older man's collar and repositioned himself between the petrified father and the window and exclaimed, "George!" he grabbed his attention. Now he needed only to direct him. "That thing's coming right at us! I need you to take your wife and child and get them to safety! Do you understand?"

Speechless though he was, George managed a trembling nod, then gradually quit his sniveling until he could look Terra straight in the eye and weakly asked, "But what about you? You don't mean to face that monster in your condition…do you?"

The question forced Terra to evaluate his situation. If Aqua was still out of commission and Ven and Xehanort were unable to reach him on Hooks' vessel, that would mean he was the only one responsible for protecting this world from its newest destroyer, and barely able to stand as he was…

Mary clutched George's shoulder with a firm hand and ordered, "George, grab Terra and let's go!"

Both men were amazed at her bravery under pressure, but with his wife's encouragement, George regained some of his own courage and nodded. He picked Terra up in his arms and followed his wife as they fled down the stairs and into the street, out of the sky-sized juggernaut's path. Terra never had the chance or the strength to object.

When they passed Hook's disfigured corpse on the pavement, Terra's sight lingered on it and he wondered, _Could that be what the monster's after?_

_**Seven miles overhead…**_

The Unversed magic fueling his Keyblade-glider roared to life, its nose spearing the black mist of storm clouds he raced through as he narrowly avoided the lightning that flared against his abyssal, murky helmet. Hail struck him all the same, but Vanitas was unshaken by the elements which sought his destruction as he expertly steered the sleek and angular hover-cycle his Keyblade transformed into. He knew his mission and the clock he raced against. Adrenaline forcing him onward, the masked rider continued his high-speed descent through the cloud barrier, dodging lightning strikes and restrikes, yet never fully certain or concerned he'd make it through alive.

Instinct warned him of a positively-charged surge of ionized air—a "leader" of what would become a lightning bolt—splintering upwards to meet him when there was nowhere safe to weave aside. Reactively casting a frenzied magnet spell at his cry, "Gather!" Xehanort's disciple influenced the ion charges of other nearby leaders in the cloud, turning their positive charges negative and thusly altering them into airborne streamers, those opposite charges which attract leaders, and forcing them to connect and release their electrical discharge prematurely, scarcely saving Vanitas from an almost certain death as the lightning he influenced blasted all around him.

With that final display, his vehicle pierced the end of the storm cloud barrier which separated the _Jolly Roger_ from London and he set his sights on the titanic Nobody flying towards a three-story house several miles below.

"C'mon! Punch it!" he screamed at his glider—Void Gear—and the magic hover-cycle redoubled its efforts, streaking through the stratospheric air and falling snow at speeds that would topple any other rider. _But it's been __**so long**__ since I've been out of a cage. I need this. Even if the mission kills me, I need this!_

In time scarcely fathomed, Vanitas descended past the toppled peaks of London's skyscrapers and trailed only a few hundred yards behind the crocodile, where he found a comrade he hadn't seen since his imprisonment began seventy-nine grueling days ago.

He pulled up his glider beside hers, but Aqua was the first to speak. "Vanitas?!" Just his presence affirmed that Ven and Xehanort's half of the mission succeeded.

The surprise in her tone was expected, but unreadable. _No, distant_—Vanitas told himself, unsure how he felt about it. _That's all I ever was with Eraqus' kids. Distant._ —It didn't help that they were both wearing helmets.

He pushed confused apathy aside and shouted over the high speeds, "Regroup with Terra and fall back to the _Jolly Roger_! Xehanort's orders!"

Even now, almost three months after they last saw each other under tragic circumstances with no guarantee of ever reuniting, Aqua was astounded at the boy's impersonal nature—how he was always either an aloof joker or a stone-hearted soldier, yet unpleasant all the same.

She tried to protest his interception, "But—!"

Vanitas snapped back at her, "I said ugly's mine!"

Without another word, Aqua reluctantly broke off pursuit, yet lingered long enough to understand her returned partner's motive. _What's he doing? That monster's already beginning its descent, and before it even lands, it's gonna demolish dozens of buildings and take hundreds of lives just by its size alone. Does he really think he can stop it?_

Vanitas blazed the remaining distance at a heartrate barely contained, weaving through the beast's towering spinal column and other protruding armatures that would've slain him on impact, all to the metronomic ticking and tocking of the warped and deformed alarm clock inside the monster's belly. At last, he overshot the Nobody's elongated maw, its groan deafening and physically disrupting, and he saw his target.

There, plastered against the pavement before a three-story home laid James Hook's sprawled corpse. A large part of Vanitas felt cheated he couldn't execute the captain himself after all the demi-Heartless put him through. He skidded his hover-cycle to a brief near-halt as he leaned over the side to snatch up the departed captain by his black-bloodied collar. Holding him up to look on his ex-captor's face in the glider's oblique turn, Vanitas was genuinely shocked to behold what Terra and the Darlings had done to him.

The captain's face was scorched beyond recognition and his hair all burned off—no doubt from a powerful fire spell of Terra's—and a bullet entry wound tarnished his already-charred forehead. The impact of the fall smashed the entire back of his skull open into black jelly with most of those spilled remains left as a puddle on the concrete. His death was clearly gruesome, but his face, his remains…those were beyond mortifying. At least Vanitas could hide his own torture-deformities behind a mask. In the fraction of a second before he returned to the present and his glider completed its rotation, Vanitas left Hook's lifeless gaze and regarded his appearance with one parting thought.

_To be honest, I'm not sure which of us got the worse deal._

Then his eyes were back on the giant, who was only twenty yards away and already opening its maw for the meal the masked rider stole. Vanitas held up Hook before the crocodile to grab its attention. "You want this? Come and get it!" Then he forced his glider back to life and zoomed past the Nobody's side, flying out of reach of the six arms on its side. Looking back against the shearing wind, he found his ploy worked and the ghost-white behemoth—over 150 meters long, over twenty meters wide, and who could guess how heavy?—was already turning to pursue him before it could land and crush any other structures. Xehanort's disciple never bothered to guess how many lives he just saved.

_It's not enough to get this thing away from the city. I need it off-world._

That's where Vanitas flew: upwards, through the snowfall and back to the ominous wall of clouds above and the lightning storm within. Aqua understood his intentions before he breached the storm. _So that's what he's doing. Least the fool could've done is asked for a shield._

His glider neared the storm ceiling with the Nobody titan a shrinking distance behind. Seconds before entering, Vanitas remembered his last experience with the elements hardly minutes ago and how he was a prime target for smiting. _I should've asked Aqua for a shield._

And right on cue, Aqua, landing atop a tall home in the neighborhood and reverting Rainfell to its Keyblade form, discharged a magic bolt from the weapon that trailed after Vanitas and encompassed him and Void Gear in Aqua's signature magic barrier to protect him from the winter thunderstorm. Entering the black ceiling and watching the electric volts splay chaotically but harmlessly against the shield around him, Vanitas breathed a breathless prayer, "Bless you, Aqua."

But the crocodile which dwarfed frigates broke into those same clouds, immune to the hazardous weather, and pursued the masked rider who stole his prize with a ravenous vengeance. It bellowed a blood-curdling roar which half-immersed Vanitas in an afterlife which seemed all too near in those moments, but he swallowed what fear he could and pushed on through the perilous black mist as the magic barrier slowly dissipated from damage and wear, the Nobody's jaws closing in.

They traveled miles in seconds and Vanitas was the first to reach the other side of the storm, his shield gone as he entered the mesosphere with the rancorous crocodile now a greater distance behind. A small victory, but hardly his final destination. His view of space was clear now, and he saw the glimmering celestial body which outshone all others. Once majestic and beautiful, the incandescent mass had become unstable and grotesque from Heartless domination. It was the perilous trapping-ground Xehanort designated for his disciple to lead the Nobody into. Vanitas regarded it with finality.

_There it is. Second star to the right and straight on 'til morning. I can make it in half that time._

When the Nobody broke through the murky vapor and outstretched its hellish maw for another thunderous roar, Vanitas demanded the glider amplify its power output, and in time, the boy and his hunter reached the thermosphere, and 150 kilometers later, they passed into the exosphere, which gradually faded into the vacuum of space. Already, the Heartless Neverland seemed so much closer.

There was no record of time kept between the flyers in the shortening gap between them and the anomalous star. Not even the clock in the Nobody's stomach made a sound in the silent void of space. Yet in time unmeasured and fatigue ignored, Vanitas blazed closer to his destination until the star's malevolent glow gave way to detail of the undead shadowlands that comprised the Heartless world. Its ghastly corpse and the hell-spawns it birthed were leagues beyond the horror that became Destiny Islands, at least when Vanitas last saw it. Now, though, that unfortunate world was likely gone: just another vanished star. Vanitas brushed aside the memory of his greatest failure and focused on the magic seal Xehanort placed over the world long ago to prevent the Heartless from escaping.

Hook's deformed corpse still in hand, the masked Keybearer commanded the speeding vehicle, "Alright, don't fail me now! Bust that seal open!" and the tip of the Keyblade glider blazed with power and shot forth a beam of energy that revealed the Keyhole Xehanort locked. Void Gear's beam surged with intensified power as Vanitas directly fed more of his Unversed energy into it, and when only seconds of distance remained between the rider and the world's barrier, the lock finally gave and the magic dome quickly dispersed apart from the apex, opening hundreds of yards apart in seconds—enough for the titanic Nobody to fit through. Already, many winged creatures of Darkness flocked to the widening aperture in conflicting anticipation of freedom and warfare. Though space was opening to them, they understood the crisis of the incoming Nobody and his herald.

Skidding his hover-cycle to another extreme turn when the opening was within throwing distance, Vanitas lobbed the deformed corpse of Hook into the world's atmosphere as he screamed to the Nobody not far behind him, "Welcome to Hell, beastie! Enjoy the buffet!"

He smirked beneath the mask as he watched the winged Heartless react in what might be interpreted as terror. The crocodile would be upon them in seconds. _Now just put the seal back up and watch 'em tear each other apart._

But a protruding scale of the crocodile's impenetrable armor clipped the back of Vanitas' hover-cycle, breaking apart the magic weapon's glider form and jolting the exhausted rider from his vehicle. He spiraled out of control, chaotically fumbling against the gargantuan crocodile's jagged hide as it descended at incredible speeds to the Heartless world, dragging the Keybearer along with it as he crashed and ricocheted from brutal collisions with the Nobody's spinal column and infrequent armatures. It was a miracle nothing was amputated.

He tried to distance himself from the host he unwittingly entangled with, yet never found the chance and could only hold onto a protrusion of its armor for dear life. The Heartless threw themselves upon the goliath—some landing far closer to Vanitas than he would've liked—and the nearer the warring company careened to the world's troposphere, the greater the sums and magnitudes of the Heartless became, until sable giants rivaling the Nobody's stature flew upward to meet them with savage ferocity. In the fray, Hook's corpse fell beyond reach and beyond sight, lost to a ravenous forest of shadows. Vanitas had no intention of joining the captain he reviled and so gambled with his own life and flung himself from the crocodile's form once more. Against every odd, he escaped the behemoth's vicinity without a further scratch, yet found himself freefalling helplessly in the air as the giants streaked faster to the ground, none paying miniscule Vanitas any mind. Seconds after he released his host and watched the titans plummet to Hell, the dethroned Keybearer beheld the black sea itself reach up to the crocodile with dozens of monstrous limbs and wicked teeth and watched it and the other Heartless pull the Nobody into the murky brine. The leviathan which unleashed an Armageddon of unyielding horror over London not so long ago now flailed and clashed for its un-life against forces far superior until the stronger demons prevailed and dragged it to the shadowy depths.

No longer aware of his own descent, Vanitas froze in terrified disbelief. It wasn't until his Keyblade returned to him of its own will that he remembered his status and his mission.

He reactivated the glider and tore through the air to flee the world before its forces realized he was there.

Its flyers found him anyway.

Stifling a yelp, he urged Void Gear to break its strained limits, yet found the glider's strength nearing depletion. He encouraged it—_C'mon! Get us through this! We're not done yet!_

And though the hover-cycle's speed only diminished, he cleared the world's border before the winged demons could reach him. Disengaging glider mode at once, he turned back to face the corpse of Neverland as he continued trailing away through space—an object in motion staying in motion—and outstretched the bladed form of Void Gear before him, releasing another surge of light from the Keyblade to reinitialize planetary lockdown. In seconds of power expended, something resembling a Keyhole reappeared over the world, and as the contour vivified, the hexagonal links which comprised the magic barrier rushed to converge on that point. Vanitas was grateful his efforts to break in only undid a fraction of the total barricade. Spent as he was, he'd never fully recreate Xehanort's work.

The Heartless hordes that pursued him on the other side screeched and howled as the barrier closed, but one made it through a millisecond before the seal was finished. Fatigued and off-guard, Vanitas cried in panic as the six-foot-tall, winged demon closed on him and soon had him in its merciless clutches, swatting the Keyblade away and gnashing at him with its sharpened teeth. There was no sound in space, but Vanitas could hear the bloodcurdling screams penetrating his soul nonetheless. Only by tired brute force was the masked boy able to stay the monster's fangs from his helmet—though, if the claws persisted, they would pierce his suit and expose his flesh to the cold void.

Thoughts raced under pressure.

_Can't torch 'im off—no oxygen in space!_

_Too close for lightning—I'd fry myself too!_

_Oh, God—those eyes! Those teeth!_

It was rare for Xehanort's most reclusive disciple to experience fear.

With a cry that could only be heard in his helmet, he forced back one of the monster's claws, and in the nanosecond that followed, coated his own fist with daggers of ice and impaled the Heartless' ribcage. It screeched in pain that space silenced, but Vanitas allowed adrenaline to force his hand again and he drew his arm back and then shot it forward to skewer the shadowy predator a second time—then a third—a fourth—a fifth—until the murderous vigor that fueled the monster's sallow eyes faded and death occupied those once shimmering orbs.

Breathless and horrified, Vanitas kicked the black form away and watched it sail through the void—its sable entrails spilling freely, almost gracefully away—until its corpse connected with the magic barrier and the collision shattered the rest of the beast apart, dispersing it into fractals and molecules, then nothingness. The demon's brethren watched its demise in horror and vengeance at the limit of the barrier, just inches apart yet forever separated, and they cursed the masked boy in their Heartless tongue. Clearly, these ones were advanced enough to form their own language. What that implied about Heartless evolution as a whole was a subject to fear for another day. For now, Vanitas only laid back, resting on the emptiness that carried him, and leisurely raised his frost-encased fist at the Heartless in a final taunt. A particularly elongated icicle in the center made the gesture appear obscene.

Void Gear returned to him, but there was no hurry to ride back to the others. The flight to Neverland likely spanned several hours—what difference would a nap make? He was tired and deserved this rest. Oh, how long it had been since he'd last seen the stars or anything beyond his cell…

_Almost forgot how beautiful it all was. The sky…the stars… Damn you, Hook. You stole my face…a quarter-year of my life… I counted the days until my freedom—seventy-nine. That's how long I waited. I wanted nothing more than to repay every form of torture you inflicted on me tenfold. But now…nothing's as satisfying as just lying here, surrounded by everything you took from me._

He reached a hand upward for the morning star, forty-three trillion kilometers away, and slowly closed his fist around it, exhaling and shutting his eyes with the knowledge that nothing in the universe stopped him now.

_This is freedom._


	7. In the Wake of Nightmares

_**Chapter Seven: In the Wake of Nightmares**_

_**The Streets of London, shortly after Vanitas' departure…**_

Aqua scoured the debris covering the streets for survivors, removing the wreckage of buildings the Nobody toppled and aiding civilians in whatever way she could. To the confused, traumatized Londoners, in her regal armor and cape and with such miraculous powers, a beautiful face, a calming voice, peculiar hair color, and a demeanor that gave hope to all around her, she appeared as a guardian angel. The children especially took a liking to her and she met them with a kindness befitting a hero of Light.

In truth, she had never been more anxious in her life.

Her orders relayed through Vanitas were to regroup with Terra and meet Xehanort on the _Jolly Roger_, but she couldn't return to search for her old friend back at the opera house so long as there were innocents to save from a disaster she failed to prevent. And now that their war with the Heartless was directly responsible for publicly harming so many, the higher mission demanded she save the lives she endangered.

_If only I knew if Terra's still alive or dead. Knowing one or the other would give me peace or understanding, but never having the chance to look for him after that explosion separated us…_

Anguished, she forced the thought aside as she continued digging through rubble in the snow and healing victims when they needed it. Other civilians and policemen joined in the rescue operation, followed soon by former victims who felt they were well enough to lend a hand. In minutes, Londoners from all across the neighborhood arrived on the scene to save whomever they could, and all rallied under Aqua's instructions. In the community's collective post-traumatic understanding, what humans were they to challenge an angel who commanded such miraculous powers?

They were terrified of everything transpired, more so than they'd ever been in all their lives, but in the wake of carnage and in the midst of despair, they still knew compassion. After beholding the otherworldly apparition which came so dangerously close to destroying them, all those fears of foreign superpowers, arms races, imperial conquests, military alliances, rebellions, and the threat of their first ever world-war seemed suddenly so distant and irrelevant. There was only the now.

Miles above, where the snowfall began, Xehanort surveyed Aqua's and the community's efforts with magic-amplified vision, and he smiled proudly at the altruism his student inspired. _But then, her philanthropy is one of Eraqus' achievements—not mine._

"She's a remarkable woman," he said with his back turned to Ventus and Smee. "Without her guidance, these people would no doubt collapse into a panic and cause even more destruction. The apparition of the crocodile should've driven them insane, but she's subdued their fear and given them something to work towards. She truly is a Keyblade Master."

Ven stayed silently behind a few yards back, awed and intimidated by the report of what a larger-than-life hero his friend had become while he only descended into piracy. Where he once felt too ashamed by what he'd become to ever see his friends again, he was now _terrified_.

Ventus gripped his coat tighter, self-conscious of the half-full flask inside, and trembled in the winter air. The rum's temporary warming effect had worn off and somehow made the cold even colder. _I always knew things would be different when we met again. Very…very different. I always knew and it made me sick just to think of it. But now—now that' I've fallen so far into the Darkness and they've become bigtime heroes, how am I—? How could I possibly—?_

Xehanort looked over his shoulder to the blonde pirate. "Are you ready to face her again?"

Ven silently gasped and clenched his coat tighter, his eyes quivering and on the brink of tears at the question. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came and he looked away with a stifled whimper—the most wretched he'd ever felt in the short few years of memory he still retained. A pathetic end to his glorious life as a pirate.

Xehanort observed him knowingly. "I see. Then, there is no hurry."

Bitter relief washed over the boy who, for a time, forgot he was still only a boy. All those adventures and revelries he indulged in to play at being a man amounted to nothing at the mere notion of confronting those who truly were adults. He hated himself for being afraid of his friends.

Xehanort continued, "Go retrieve Vanitas. His flight to Neverland may take several hours, and if he is injured or unable to make the journey back, he will need your aid."

A semblance of nerve returning to him, Ventus scowled and challenged his elder like the humiliated teenager he was, "You trust me to leave your sight? How do you know I won't run off?"

The old Master turned sidelong towards him, his expression unamused. "My boy, I've trusted you to roam the universe beyond my sight for over seven weeks now, and that was only your first assignment. What are a few hours more?" He paused a moment to consider, then added solemnly, "And, if you should decide to pursue your own path after Vanitas is returned to us, I will not stop you."

Ven and Smee's eyes widened, astonished at what they'd heard.

Xehanort hung his head, almost in mournful acceptance. "Terra and Aqua will never know where you went and we'll make no effort to track you. Your life will be yours and yours alone, with no crotchety old Masters to stop you. If this is truly the freedom you crave, take it."

The old man closed his eyes in the tense silence that followed. He felt the weight of the wayward apprentice's conflicting desires and raw emotions permeate the area—the greatest crossroads and responsibility he'd ever faced in his young life. A flash of light later, Ventus flew away, armored and atop his Keyblade glider to find Vanitas in space. He would have a lot to think about on the journey.

The old Master inhaled a sharp intake of air through his nose and exhaled winter's visible breath through his mouth, but Mr. Smee was the first to speak. "Do you think he'll be back?"

Xehanort spoke as a father worried—yet accepting—he would never see his prodigal son again. "The heart is not always an easy thing to read. One as young and muddled as his will always be a challenge to bear with. I fear not even he knows what he wants from life. But it will be a long journey; he'll have enough time to work things out."

The midnight hour sounded from Big Ben's towering form—one of the structures left untouched by the Nobody's destruction—heralding the advent of February the second: the day a world on the brink of war would discover it wasn't alone in the universe.

When the lightning storm settled, the old Master parted the clouds and revealed the contour of the _Jolly Roger_ to the amazed citizens below who beheld one marvel after another in the last hour. Mr. Smee lowered the ship to just a few hundred yards above a safe area where no citizens or structures could be endangered, and then Xehanort levitated himself and his half-Shadow servant into a graceful descent to meet Aqua and the astounded masses below, the latter of whom exclaimed in wonder:

"Could it be? More angels?"

"Praise the Lord!"

"We need all the miracles we can get."

"Is the giant demon gone for good?"

"Just tell us what to do, sires—we'll do anything you say!"

The old man chuckled to himself, enjoying the adoration, though it wasn't his primary intention. But Mr. Smee felt a different sensation; for the past two-hundred years, he'd lived among pirates who only struck fear among those innocents they encountered—but now, with his new station and new master, the people welcomed him as a savior. It was all so overwhelming to the little man and he felt no shame in the tears of joy which streamed down the human side of his face.

Few words were exchanged between Aqua and the two new arrivals in the hours that passed as they lent their skills and powers to cleaning up London, the citizens aiding in whatever way they could. And most of the words the Keybearers spoke were brief orders or directions to the people or to each other to help clear away wreckage from the disaster.

Xehanort explained to Aqua early on to avoid confusion, "The half-Shadow is Mr. Smee. He was one of Hook's crew and has since sworn his loyalty to our cause."

Aqua only nodded, already gathering the demi-Heartless was somehow an ally. The story how was only a formality.

A short while later into the cleanup, Aqua finally asked, "How—how's Ventus? Is he alright?"

Her Master answered bitterly, "He is fine. I sent him to assist Vanitas should he require it."

Aqua's eyes widened and panic tinged her voice, "You sent him to face the crocodile?"

"Not necessarily. If Vanitas succeeds in his mission, young Ventus will need only guide him back to the _Jolly Roger_. It is only a precaution, but I imagine they'll be exhausted from the journey."

"Where did you send them?"

"To the husk of Neverland: a fitting prison for the Nobody."

A horrified pause, then Aqua ventured, "You really don't know if they'll be okay, do you?"

The old man didn't speak, but only grunted and gently shook his head. That was all the answer Aqua needed and she swallowed what heavy fear and concern she could and returned to the matter at hand.

Some hours later, when most of the rubble had been cleared away and further municipal teams arrived to lend aid in the search and rescue operations, the two Keybearers and a number of other rescuers took a short reprieve while some civilians passed out water and small meals to maintain their energy. As the Keyblade Masters briefly sat off to the side with a magic fire betwixt them for warmth and took their refreshments, Xehanort finally inquired between sips of his coffee what he'd been wondering since he arrived on the surface.

"What's become of Terra? Why isn't he with you?"

Disheartened at the question yet half-relieved that he finally asked it, the blue-haired woman solemnly lowered her own mug of coffee and stared into its contents, unable to look her master in the eye. "I haven't seen him since the bomb went off at the theater."

"A _bomb_?" That grabbed Xehanort's attention. "How in blazes was a _bomb_ involved? Capturing Hook should've been a simple task—swift and silent. What went wrong—?"

"He had backup," Aqua dared to cut him off, not with animosity or disrespect, but simply to confess the truth as quickly as possible. She clenched her eyes shut. "He caught us off-guard and he threw a bomb inside the theater and…" Tired, she allowed her eyelids to open and turned to face her elder. "I really don't know what's happened to him. I know Hook made it out as far as that house over there because that's where Vanitas retrieved his body, but Terra…" She sighed in frustration. "I—I wish I knew what happened! Is Terra still alive? How did Hook die? And if Terra was the one to kill him, why didn't he come back for me? There's just too much that doesn't add up and—!" She hung her head and allowed the tears to fall as her shoulders intermittently bobbed. "Master, he could be dead. He may've been dead for hours and I still haven't found his body. If he's alive, then why isn't he here?"

The weight of her words fell heavy on Xehanort, whose gaze fell distant and heartbrokenly profound as he considered the unknown conditions of all three of his missing apprentices. "Then, we may be the last ones left."

There was some further silence between the recovering pair in the diminishing snowfall, but at length, Aqua wiped at her tears and replied, "No. I'm not ready to accept that." A fierce and rising determination shone in her tired eyes. "Until we find their bodies, we've got to assume they're still alive. They've survived too much to die like this."

Still more hours passed, more wreckage was cleared, and more citizens were rescued, many driven off to the hospital for treatment and others to the morgue. By the earliest sliver of dawn, when Aqua was the last of the world-traveling trio to give into fatigue and she lurched over with her hands on her knees and deactivated her armor to allow the cold air to envelop her through the tattered evening gown, a policeman cautiously approached her, still intimidated by the vast powers she possessed.

"Pardon me, madam. Are you Ms. Aqua?"

Wheezing from exhaustion amid what rubble remained, she nodded her head and answered, "Yes. I am."

The uniformed copper froze in silent wonder a short time in her presence until he remembered his task and continued, "Are—are you in acquaintance with a Mr. Terra?"

Her eyes widened and she forced herself upright at eye-level with the cop, clenching her hands on his shoulders in wild desperation. "Yes! Yes I am! Do you know where he is?"

The policeman stuttered a moment. "He—he's fine, madam! A man and a woman checked him in at the hospital with the other survivors and the doctors are doing their best to treat his injuries. Only…he refuses to stay in bed and the staff fears he may reopen several wounds if someone doesn't calm him down—"

Aqua embraced him in a tight hug, relief overwhelming her at the good news. Xehanort heard enough from nearby and allowed a thankful smile to calm him. Not wasting another moment, Aqua took off running across the city to the hospital, so caught up in the excitement she never considered flying there on Rainfell. Welcome tears of jubilation poured from her eyes and she laughed between gasps in all the rapture. The sun steadily rose in her trek as adrenaline carried her forward despite all exhaustion, and when she reached the hospital, the nurses knew at once who she was from Terra's description. They pointed her in her friend's direction, "He's right this way, ma'am," and she carefully darted through the crowded lobby and hallways until she spied the brilliant emerald glow of a healing spell shine amid a group of injured patients. Those among the crowd of wounded or dying gasped and cheered as another of their own was restored by the silver-haired miracle-worker who cured them with only a word and the touch of his hands.

In the bewilderment of euphoria, Aqua forced herself to a halt in the crowd when she finally beheld her long-lost companion. Breathless from everything transpired, it took some extra seconds for Aqua to fully comprehend the wounds Terra sustained; tightly-wrapped gauze covered the bloody pit that was once his right eye, and a sizeable white bandage adorned his left cheek to stop the bleeding of what would no doubt become a deep and jagged scar. All other wounds and medical dressings were hidden beneath his hospital gown, but Aqua could discern from his limited movements and the wheelchair he sat in where these injuries were and how much they pained him. Above all else, she was thrilled to find him alive, but was also deeply mortified to learn how their failure to swiftly capture Hook—her failure to detect those Invisibles a fraction of a moment sooner—left Terra so wounded and scarred while she emerged virtually unscathed. _How could I have let this happen? …Terra, what happened to you? Why couldn't I protect you…?_

She swallowed the immediate guilt and placed her hands on a nearby child on a gurney and exclaimed, "Heal!" enveloping the small girl in that ethereal light and alerting the battered and bleeding crowd that another messiah had come to save them. They turned to her in wonder and were soon upon her as well, each of them pleading to be next when they already knew from Terra of the short recharge period that passed between cure spells. Terra looked up to her in that same amazement, surprised to find her there of all places as she tried to pass through the flocking masses to reach him. And amid the arms that reached, the hands that scrabbled, and the voices that clamored, she stretched her own arm forward to reach Terra, who painfully rose to his feet from the wheelchair the nurses provided for him, until her hand could touch his cheek and they embraced one another in an intimate hug, clinging to each other in the surging relief that flooded their weary hearts in the wake of all the nightmares they endured.


	8. A World's Awakening

Naomi is another OC. ...Well, kind've...technically not. She did have one line of dialogue in the first game, but no onscreen appearances or anything afterwards and almost no one remembers her, so...well, you'll see who I mean.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Chapter Eight: A World's Awakening<strong>_

_**The void of space, trillions of kilometers away…**_

Vanitas was still breathing when armored Ven found him drifting through space. Unconscious, but breathing. He paused atop his Keyblade glider when he picked him up in his arms, wondering once again which path to take after he returned the masked boy to his Master: to stay with those who were once his family and forever be overshadowed by the heroes they'd become while constantly aware of the immoral filth he degenerated into, or fly away, never look back, and once again immerse himself in the life of piracy he fell in love with—the life of _freedom_ where he'd never be ashamed of the person he'd become and always have the chance to carve his own destiny.

Such were his thoughts when he turned back the way he came and prepared for the return voyage that would conclude what might be his last mission in service to his former family. He kicked the glider form of Wayward Wind back into gear and sailed once again through the starlit blackness with Vanitas resting in his arms.

_**The crew's cabin of the Jolly Roger; midday of February the second…**_

_"The closer you stand to the light, the greater your shadow becomes. And right now, you pride yourself in being an anointed child of the Light, oblivious to the Darkness that festers behind your back."_

The demon Chernabog's words haunted Aqua through her slumber, bitterly reminding her their war against the Heartless was far from over. Undressed into a tank-top and shorts, she forced herself awake and sat over the side of her hammock, clinging to the thick blankets to keep her warm. Her head in her hands, she tried and failed to banish all memory of the death-bringer's lies.

_"It's been there all along, but faith in your allies and your own abilities has blinded you to its presence. The Darkness grows and so shall consume you."_

She looked up and saw, some short distance ahead in the large, dimly-lit cabin, the slumbering form of Ventus in another hammock, physically spent and fast asleep from retrieving Vanitas deep in space.

_"__**He**__ shall be your undoing…"_

An unexpected smile and a relieved laugh overtook her, but she silenced herself in her joy for fear of waking him. Eyes watering again from discovering the second of her missing friends alive and well, she stood from the hammock, never releasing the impromptu coat of blankets wrapped around her, and trod quietly across the floorboards, half-afraid this was all a dream and that Ven would vanish if she wasn't careful.

But she reached his side, and for all the calluses and wear that pocked his features during their time apart, her heart still soared at being reunited with the angel whom she loved: the amnesiac child she, Terra, and Master Eraqus nursed back to health all those years ago and watched become a jovial young man. So much had changed since she last saw him—he appeared somehow older, had perhaps grown an inch or two, his unkempt hair was in dire need of a trim, and the odor of seven weeks' exposure to alcohol and gunpowder would take some time to wash away—but for all these changes, she loved and accepted him all the same.

"I've missed you so much," she whispered, careful not to disturb him.

With purest adoration in her eyes, she gently stroked his cheek to brush aside some of his greasy, golden locks and kissed him there. She wanted to stay by his side awhile longer before attending to her other duties, but a voice called her from behind a nearby stack of crates, "You don't have to worry about waking him. Kid's gonna be out for a while."

Surprised, Aqua called back, "Vanitas, is that you?"

By the time he answered, "Yup. I kicked the croc's ass," she had already rounded the small barrier between them and found the boy sitting atop a short stool, unmasked and shirtless before a small mirror with a razor in his hand and patches of jet-black hair on the floor around him. He was nearly finished shaving what little hair he had left and more than enough of the upper half of his body was still visible for Aqua to see. She stifled a gasp at beholding his every morbid scar and deformity that disfigured his head, face, and body from those seventy-nine days of imprisonment and torture—unsightly lacerations which overlapped and ran under a plethora of hellish scorch-marks and swelled, ghastly contusions, all of which covered perhaps eighty percent of his flesh and left the hair on his scalp to grow only in uneven patches, and his left eye was now dramatically more faded and filmy than the right—and the sum of every chthonic aberration rendered it impossible for anyone who didn't already know him to discern what he might've once looked like. Aqua had seen his face a handful of times since she and Terra joined Xehanort, but now Vanitas appeared as one who'd passed through a monstrous inferno yet emerged only mostly-dead.

He noted her shock and unwilling disgust and he briefly froze, breathless and self-conscious of his own hideousness, then swallowed his anxiety and tried to dispel the awkwardness. He looked over his shoulder to Aqua and commented haughtily, "You should've seen the other guy."

His humor was lost on her. She only crept forward, her somber mood never changing, and ventured, "This…this is what Hook did to you?" He didn't speak, believing the answer was obvious enough. Instead, Aqua continued, "Why didn't the Unversed save you?"

He faced the mirror again and returned to shaving the uncharred areas of his scalp. "They tried. But the Heartless are more powerful, and that magic barrier they had over my cell didn't help much either. We struggled for a while, but then my powers overloaded, the strain became too much, and…now I'm the lovely mess you see before you." He cocked a crooked smile, "Guess this means I get to see my inner self every time I look in the mirror. Darkness and damnation, I'm ugly."

Aqua was silent, amazed at imagining all that Vanitas endured and that he lived through it. There was nothing she could say, and so only looked somberly away.

The unmasked boy noted her state of undress beneath the blanket she wore, "You here to seduce me, or were you planning on getting dressed anytime soon?"

Aqua grimaced, indignant he would take advantage of her sympathy. "Just making sure everyone came back from last night alive."

Vanitas smirked as he slipped back into the top half of his suit. "Sure ya were."

Annoyed, Aqua turned to leave, but Vanitas called her again, "Actually, I could use your help with something." She paused and glanced back, half-expecting another inappropriate pass, in which case, she would simply leave. But instead, Vanitas held up a long strip of red medical gauze and looked her in the eye when he asked, "How well can you tie a knot?"

Minutes later, they were on opposite sides of the room, separated by rows of hammocks and crates. Vanitas inspected the finishing touches on the mask of crimson gauze over his head that covered all but his eyes and mouth that Aqua helped him secure. With two thin, black sashes of cloth tied 'round his head that intersected over his blinded left eye, he studied the new barrier he'd fashioned for himself in the mirror, solemnly realizing that with the absence of his face, he would forever hide behind his masks—no longer for the sake of coolness or ambiguity, but for necessity and disgrace. He closed his shame-filled eye and replaced the black helmet, now wishing he'd spent more time without it.

As Vanitas dwelled on his future, Aqua dressed far enough away into her uniform: not the same ensemble she'd worn since her days as Eraqus' pupil and still kept, but one closer resembling a slim and lightly-armored military flight suit—colored in dusky greys and dark, faded blues—custom-made for her at Radiant Garden. A hood was attached at the back of the neck, but there was no present reason to wear it. It was the uniform typically worn for stealth missions and some ceremonies, but it was also the most conservative clothing she owned: something which she felt this pre-Gummi world would appreciate when they already had enough excitement in their lives. Then she threw on and buttoned up a brown winter coat reaching almost to her knees in preparation for the freezing weather.

Slinging a burlap bag over her shoulder, she departed for the exit and looked wistfully back at sleeping Ventus one last time. She wanted to be there when he woke, but there were other things she had to do.

_**The sunlit deck of the Jolly Roger; seconds later…**_

The corpses of Hook's crew smoldered into ashes and cinders in the vast energy globe which contained the conflagration, hovering beside the ship above the icy waters of the River Thames. They'd burned all night, and soon they'd become nothingness.

Xehanort beheld the cleanup spectacle he'd created as he drank another gulp of hot tea from a porcelain cup, sitting peacefully at a table on the deck with Mr. Smee opposite him, both bundled in winter coats. The half-Shadow averted his eyes from the crude mass-cremation, only occasionally glancing sidelong in morbid curiosity, but more often than not kept his dry, heavy eyes on the English luncheon of Cornish pasties, sausage rolls, hot tea, and hard biscuits for dipping in the tea some passing citizens handed to them in gratitude for last night. Mr. Smee had long since shed every mournful, agonizing tear his body could manage for his fallen crew, but when his body's water-supply diminished, he found there was only grim acceptance. He rarely spoke to his new master, but only mechanically ate as he was able—a man dead inside.

Aqua emerged onto the deck and Xehanort raised his cup to her. "Ah, Aqua—good morning. Or, rather, good afternoon. Care for some local cuisine? The tea on this world is _exquisite_."

She stuttered a failed answer, too distracted by the burning pyre and her Master's casual attitude towards it. Worst of all, she noticed the discomfort and sullen resignation his new servant was forced to endure. When the shock wore off, she answered legibly, "Just something to go. I still need to pick up Terra from the hospital."

Xehanort made an inviting, sweeping gesture with his arm toward the luncheon and Aqua poured herself a small cup of the English tea, one eye constantly on morose Smee. She stifled an explosive gag when the warm drink poured down her throat, surprised at the bitter flavor elders such as the two sitting at the table typically preferred that she was too distracted to sweeten. The old Master cackled, "I was wondering if you preferred your tea black. The sugar and milk's right there."

"It's alright," Aqua replied, anxious to move on with her itinerary. "I don't want to keep Terra waiting." With that, she grabbed a Cornish pasty from the table and made for the gangplank leading to the sidewalk.

"Suit yourself," Xehanort replied before enjoying another drink. "Oh, and we needn't worry about sealing the Keyhole any longer. I already took care of that. As it turns out, it was on the face of that large clock tower over there. Curiously, the Keyhole only appeared when it struck twelve exactly."

Aqua glanced across the Thames and at the face of Big Ben. "Twelve exactly, huh? That's not that long ago."

"Aye," Xehanort replied. "We only returned less than ten minutes ago."

Aqua nodded in acknowledgment and turned again to leave, the sight of the floating pyre of pirate corpses turning her stomach one too many times, but when she took her first step down the gangplank, the goodness of her heart ventured, "Hey, would it be alright if Mr. Smee came along?" _Anything to get him away from this cruelty._

It was a surprising question, but one which brooding Smee barely had the energy to react to.

Xehanort considered it a moment, then shrugged. "I don't see why not. He could use a walk."

_'He could use a walk.'_ —Was Xehanort treating the subject as if the half-Shadow was a pet? Aqua didn't want to believe so, but his reaction disgusted her all the same, even if it was meant as a joke, but she did well to hide her revulsion. No creature—living, Heartless, or anything in-between—deserved to be forced to watch its family burn away like this. Mr. Smee was sluggish to move, but joined Aqua in her departure without a word and they traversed the London roads in the crisp, clear winter air. They would have taken a horse-drawn cab or a tram if munny was an acceptable form of currency on this world. Aqua made a note to herself to enjoy a carriage ride back on Radiant Garden since she couldn't do so here.

They'd made significant progress clearing away the wreckage of the Nobody's near-rampage, but now that she could see the destruction in broad daylight, she understood why so many civilians chose to cower indoors and those who did decide to venture outside today formed tight clusters and chatted urgently amongst themselves about the night before: of the monster which vanished into the clouds as quickly as it arrived, of the otherworldly visitors who combatted it and spent the night among them, and of what these apocalyptic incidents meant in regards to the already volatile state of the world. They gossiped as if it were the end of days. Perhaps it was. Their eyes followed Aqua and Smee and all conversation hushed whenever they drew close enough. Smee kept his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground the whole time.

After they'd passed a gossiping crowd, Aqua peered sympathetically down at the broken half-Heartless beside her. "I'm sorry you had to endure all this. No one should have to watch their family die and burn like that. I'll talk to Xehanort about his conduct when we get back."

Smee never looked up at her. "I don't care." His words were dry and bitterly resigned—the words of a man too weary of life to be bothered for whatever fate befell him in the long sunset of his existence.

His fatalistic attitude struck a pang of unbridled remorse and empathy from the woman who, not twelve hours ago, would have been his enemy. But she only saw a life abused beyond the limits of humanity, and now that they were on the same side, it was unbearable to leave the matter as it was so long as she had the chance to treat it. "Smee," she pressed, "it doesn't matter if your side lost or if you're half Heartless; you're a living being and it's wrong for anyone to treat you like a soulless beast."

The words were dry on his tongue. "What would you have me do? I…I thought I could move on when—when I helped clean up all the rubble and saved those innocents last night. I—I thought maybe I had a chance at becoming something greater than what I am… But, when I saw Mr. Xehanort b—burn all my friends like that right in front of me without caring for how I felt…" he paused, choking back on something, then continued, "it made me realize I'll never be anything more to him than this: a funny little half-Heartless ab—abomination for him to point and laugh at."

Though the prospect of Xehanort pointing and laughing at a small half-Heartless like an abusive owner toward his crippled pet was too surreal to be true, she understood what Smee felt. More likely, Xehanort's usual manner and odd sense of humor was misplaced on their draftee at a time when he needed compassion more than anything else. There were any number of reasons why Xehanort would perpetuate grief in heartbroken Smee, the most likely being he simply didn't think about what he was doing, but Aqua resolved to confront him about it nonetheless.

She finally answered, "Well, whatever the Master thinks of you, you know I'll never treat you in that way, and I'll make sure Terra and Ven never do either…Vanitas is out of my reach, though. You're one of us now and we don't treat our own like garbage. Come talk to me if you have any problems."

She spoke as if Ven would be staying long enough for his treatment of Smee to be an issue. _Does she not know? She doesn't know Ventus is thinking about leaving?_

He didn't say anything, but afforded a short glance up at Aqua, but where she mistook it for a gesture of appreciation, he truly looked on her in piteous realization that she was unaware of Ven's present crossroads.

Chernabog's words rang true. _"…you pride yourself in being an anointed child of the Light, oblivious to the Darkness that festers behind your back."_

_**Terra's hospital room; a short time later…**_

The still-silver-haired Keybearer sat upright in his bed, the Darlings on either side of him as they all stared downward at the open locket Terra held before them. Even the infant Wendy, in Terra's arms, found some vague interest at the small, sepia-toned daguerreotype of a young brunette woman crouching beside her toddler sons; the mother and her younger son beaming their affection and the slightly older boy affording only a thin smile within the metal case.

Mary grinned amiably. "You have a beautiful family, Terra."

Though smiling as well, George added, "I confess, I assumed you were too young to already have sons that age. But perhaps things are different on your world."

Terra chuckled. "You are right about that, but I'm only the step-father. Naomi is two years older than me and she had Sora six years ago. The silver-haired one is Riku, a friend of Sora's they adopted after their world was destroyed. We may not be related, but my new sons have accepted me nonetheless. I truly am blessed to have them as my family." The Darlings couldn't have seen Terra's wedding ring around his finger when they first spoke last night, not with the bloodied formal gloves to the now-ruined suit covering his hands. But now that only a hospital gown and bedsheets adorned him, it didn't take long to notice the silver glint around his left ring-finger.

The door opened and a nurse stepped through. "Terra, you have more visitors." And from behind her, Aqua stepped into the room in a long, brown coat with a burlap bag at her side while Mr. Smee lingered in the doorway. The nurse left to perform her other duties.

"Hey, Terra," Aqua greeted softly. Then she quirked an eyebrow at her friend's audience gathered 'round the locket and teased with a smile, "Showing off the family?"

Terra smirked back. "Something like that." Then he closed the locket and motioned to his visitors, "Aqua, this is George and Mary Darling and their daughter, Wendy. They're the ones who took down Hook."

The blue-haired Keybearer's and the half-Shadow's eyes widened considerably in shock, scarcely believing what they'd just heard. Aqua stuttered, "You—_you_ finally stopped Hook?"

"Terra did most of the work," Mary replied, "but we did help in some small way."

George added, "Your friend saved us all from that Heartless madman. We only returned the favor. You must be Ms. Aqua, then."

She nodded. "Just 'Aqua's' fine." She held out her hand in greeting and George shook it, then Mary. "Thank you for taking care of my friend."

"He's told us so much about you and Ven," Mary replied. "It's wonderful knowing there are friendly faces beyond the stars."

Terra looked past Aqua, Wendy still in his arms, and noticed the timid half-Shadow wrapped in heavy layers and keeping to himself in the doorway. The bedridden Keybearer called warmly, "You must be Mr. Smee, right?" The ex-pirate hadn't expected this Keyblade Master to know who he was, let alone address him in such a way. Terra continued, "Aqua told me about you last night. You were a big help clearing away the wreckage and rescuing civilians, I hear. Welcome to the side of Light."

The small shadow-man was too timid to reply, but only trembled slightly and regarded his new acquaintance with eyes weary but grateful to have found such a tolerant ally. He nodded in Terra's direction, too timid and heartbroken over the death of Hook to speak.

Visions of Terra's present congeniality and of the dark fire he unleashed against Hook in the theater clashed in Aqua's mind as she remembered the poison words Chernabog spoke: _"It's been there all along, but faith in your allies and your own abilities has blinded you to its presence. The Darkness grows and so shall consume you. __**He**__ shall be your undoing…" _

She dismissed the thought. _How could anyone as kind and caring as Terra possibly give in to Darkness? I know I thought I saw him use a dark spell in the opera house, but what did I __**really**__ see? Just a quick glimpse of fire clashing with Dark energy—for all I know, that was a regular fire spell colliding with Hook's shadowy form. I must not've been seeing clearly in the pressure of the moment. I did have two Invisibles trying to skewer me, after all._

Aqua held up the burlap bag and approached Terra's side to hand it to him. Under normal circumstances, she might've tossed it for her friend to catch, but not with the infant Wendy in his arms. "I brought you a change of clothes for whenever you're ready to leave. Master Xehanort told me after I returned last night we'll have to attend a press conference today. The Heartless did a lot of damage and the people will have a lot of questions they'll want answered." She turned to George and Mary, "I assume Terra's already told you everything?"

"That, he has," George answered. "Keyblades and Heartless and doorways to other worlds—it was all a bit much to take in, but after that 'No One' appeared in the sky last night, it's simply too difficult to deny."

Terra muttered under his breath, "It's called a 'Nobody,' but…"

Mary added, "To think there are worlds out there besides our own and that we're all under threat of invasion by the same enemy… I'm only glad there are heroes such as you to protect us."

Aqua nodded. "That's why we joined the Coalition of Allied Worlds: to unite as many realms with a common enemy as we could and combine our resources to stop any who would threaten us. We'd like your world to join, as well."

"Another alliance is the last thing England needs," George cut in. "You are foreigners here, so I wouldn't expect you to know, but our own world is so plagued and wrought with convoluted alliances and ententes that we live in fear of one small incident plunging our entire planet into war—a catastrophe that would surely destroy us all if it were to happen."

Terra was the one to answer. "Isn't that why your world could use a common enemy?—something to rally your entire planet against and forget what divided you in the first place?"

"You speak of war as if it were a grand opportunity," Mary interjected.

Wendy crawled adventurously over Terra's arms as the young man replied, "It's not just an opportunity; it's an awakening. I don't like how they got us here, but the Heartless have forced many worlds to reevaluate old feuds and priorities, and I honestly believe we've improved because of it. It's required us to put things in perspective, and now that we see the bigger picture, so many peoples who were once enemies have united and extended a welcoming hand to those from other worlds. There's never been a time of such unity in this galaxy's recorded history."

"Such a shame it took a war to achieve it," Mary commented wryly but understood the greater picture all the same. She looked to Aqua, "When will you need to leave for your press conference?"

"Pretty soon," she replied, "and we'd like to bring Terra back with us before it starts. It's in a few hours, but we need to get everyone up to speed. And again, thank you so much for taking care of Terra for us."

"Of course, of course," George nodded with a smile as he shook Aqua's hand in departure. Terra handed Wendy to Mary and they, too, left as George added, "It's been a pleasure meeting you, Miss." To both her and Terra, "You and your family are always welcome in our home."

Mary nodded as she shook Aqua's hand, "I only pray we meet again under more favorable circumstances."

"Likewise," Aqua replied. Terra added his own farewells and then the Darlings were gone, leaving only the two Keybearers and the demi-Heartless in the room.

Terra sighed. "So, _another_ one of these 'world address' speeches? I understand the importance, but someone needs to make bureaucracy more exciting."

"Easy for you to say," Aqua retorted with a nervous smile, "You're not the one giving the speech."

It took Terra a moment to realize her meaning, but when he did, he looked at her in profound shock. "Hold on—_you're_ giving the speech?"

She nodded. "Master Xehanort thinks I'm ready. That, and he says he's getting too old for this."

"So he leaves the burden to the younger generation?" He laughed. "It's about time, though. I really do think you're ready to take on higher responsibilities. We are Masters now, after all."

Her somewhat nervous demeanor softened and she smiled appreciatively at her friend. "Thanks, Terra."

He returned her smile. "You're welcome." Then he returned to business, pointing to his silver hair. "Now, can you change my hair back to normal?"

_**Outside London's City Hall; some hours later…**_

Thousands congregated to the steps before City Hall, all beyond fearful and desperate to hear the Keybearing visitors' answers to their brimming questions of cosmic monstrosities, the coming apocalypse, and the truth of life among the stars. They needed answers and the miracle-working spacemen to provide them. Xehanort and Terra stood attentively on opposite sides of the platform, Terra dressed in his official, earth-tone uniform resembling the one Aqua had worn since she and Smee went to discharge him from the hospital—his hair returned from silver to its original, dark brown color but the bandages on his face remaining; masked Vanitas stood beside Xehanort and Smee beside Terra. Behind the central podium was Aqua, and she delivered the address.

After assuring the audience the immediate danger was over and their world was safe from further Heartless invasion for the time being, she told them an abridged version of their universe's history as the Coalition understood it—the very same that she learned from Kairi's grandmother in Radiant Garden.

"Long ago, our worlds were all one, protected by Light. Places you may have heard about in legend, such as Atlantica, Midgar, and Olympia—you remember them in obscurity because they were all part of this larger, single world, just as your planet was eons ago. And this ancestral world was bathed in a Light that brought prosperity to its people…"

But far away, below-deck of the Thames-stationed _Jolly Roger_, a farewell note was left by Ventus on his hammock as the recently-woken boy himself reached topside of the ship, eyeing the door to the captain's cabin and the prize that lay within it. _I've made up my mind. I'm going. I can't stay here anymore. I can't face them again. But if I have to leave my friends behind, I can at least take the map to Treasure Planet with me. If nothing else, at least I'll have that…_

Aqua continued, "But greed overtook the people's hearts and they began to fight each other for the Light, each determined to take it for themselves…"

Ventus swung open the door and removed the Neverland painting, leaving only the sealed vault between him and the map. He raised his rusted Keyblade with fiery determination in his eyes. _The Dark seal on my back is gone. I checked. Xehanort must've removed it while I slept. Now, nothing can stop me from solving that map! I'm so close… _He pushed aside every pang of heartbreak threatening to wrest his will away from him—to keep him imprisoned under a new master and forever in his friends' shadows when he could be his own master and cast his own shadows. The light shone from Wayward Wind._ Treasure Planet will be mine…_

"…and with the conflict they created, Darkness entered the Realm of Light…"

Ven grunted as his Keyblade's power surged and blew past him, ruffling his hair and clothes. He had to look away, only now remembering just how intense the Light could be.

"…and laid siege to everything within that world, determined to consume all life for itself…"

The vault unlocked, and Ven fervently swung it open, ignoring the anguish in his heart telling him to stop. _It's mine! It's—!_

Gone.

The map to Treasure Planet was gone.

He froze in soul-crushing disbelief, then trembled as a rush of emotions formed and racked him in their agonizing wake. He held himself tight and fell to his knees. _No! It can't be! Where could it have gone?!_

"And so, Darkness conquered the world, and it was believed all was lost…"

He ravaged the cabin in his mad search for the vanished crucible. _This isn't possible! This is impossible! No one else knew about it! No one except…!_

"However, fragments of Light remained in the hearts of children. From this Light, children were able to recreate the lost world…"

Beside Terra, Mr. Smee peered inside his heavy winter coat, assuring himself the copper spheroid he took from the vault was still there. _Terra and Aqua are the only ones who've shown any kindness to me since I joined Xehanort. They would be heartbroken if Ventus left them and never returned. If stealing this map means keeping Ven here with his family, I'm only too glad to do it._

"But the Darkness still existed and continued to fight them. It was in the wake of this war between Light and Darkness that the world was divided and scattered across galaxies, leaving these newer worlds fragmented and incomplete…"

With a signal from Xehanort, Smee produced the map from his coat, and the old Master used his Keyblade to activate the round vessel in a brilliant spectacle of his weapon's own magic power and of the device's scientifically-advanced properties as its shimmering light projected a vast holographic display of the known universe that spread into the ranks of the onlookers, prompting startled cries from the unsuspecting audience members who found themselves physically immersed in a miraculous display of the cosmos. Shaken but unharmed, they finally beheld physical proof of the fragmented worlds their herald spoke of.

Aqua pointed to a single celestial body in the projected sky. "This is the world you live in, and all these other lights are further remains of that original world, many of them inhabited by your long-lost cousins. We've been scattered and hidden from each other all this time, and the true Light has been asleep deep within the Darkness…"

Mr. Smee glared into the star of London as vengeance resolved itself in his mind. _And, as long as you're here, Ventus, I'll always have you in my sight. I'll know when you're weak and vulnerable. I'll always be ready. But one day, your guard will drop, and there I'll be: waiting to pay you back for everything you've done to me. I'll even make it look like an accident so your friends can mourn you, keep your remains, and never worry about finding a phantom culprit. I've brought you back to them, and someday soon, I'll give them the finality they need by ending you so close to home. It'll be much more satisfying for them than if you ran away and they never heard from you again. At least now, they'll have closure._

"Only recently, a door to the innermost Darkness opened and the Heartless returned," Aqua continued. "They've declared war on all of us—on all of these lights in the sky you see around you. But their arrival has also reminded us that we have allies among the stars—that when we band together with those other worlds many of us forgot existed, we stand a chance of beating the Heartless. We can crush this threat and prevent the kinds of disasters like you experienced last night from ever happening again. Together, we can do this. The Darkness seems strong now, but I promise you: the Light is coming!"

Ventus raced in blind fury from the captain's cabin and returned to the deck, fuming with scorching hatred for the half-Shadow urchin that singlehandedly destroyed his future. Rage sweltering from his very being, the boy pirate screamed a long, bloodcurdling shriek of vengeance to the cloudy heavens: "SMEEEEEEEE!"

And in his rage, he never once detected the wicked eyes that monitored him all the while: the eyes of a raven, its feathers black as ebony, who served a far higher evil than itself. With the sight of Ventus and all his exposed vulnerabilities committed to memory, the raven grinned maliciously and took flight over the Thames and into a deeper, darker part of the city.


	9. Vespertide

**Chapter Nine: Vespertide**

**The decaying Whitechapel district of London; early evening of February the second…**

The raven's sable feathers descended with the gently-falling snow upon the mud- and sleet-laden roads and alleyways of frayed cobblestone and his wicked eyes dissected the seedy underworld of London's impoverished slums, already engulfed in the darkness of night. And through Diablo's eyes, his Mistress beheld all.

Beggars were left to rot in their despair and hunger by their apathetic neighbors; children smoked and drank without fear of repercussion; an old man and his dog had a pissing match against the side of a building, never minding the occasional odd stare from passersby; a pack of thugs beat a senseless victim into submission and the two officers from Scotland Yard didn't dare intervene, both far too afraid for their own well-beings or otherwise bribed to leave them be; a rowdy fight had broken out within the pub, some of the combatants spilling into the streets or trampling others under their feet; and there were muggings and shaggings and acts of vandalism and pyromania and a possible murder all gloriously performed by souls either too unfortunate or too wicked to aspire for anything greater and their Darkness was _beautiful_ to her.

But for all this, Maleficent couldn't smile.

The tall, horned fairy garbed all in black stood ominously silent before the broken paned window of the rundown, two-story building as Diablo returned through a jagged gap in the glass and fluttered atop his perch on his Mistress' staff. The Dark Fairy pet her faithful raven before speaking to those others in the room with her as her eyes remained locked on the sinful harvest below, "James Hook is dead. Now, only eight of us remain."

A brief silence fell over the cold, musty room as a fire crackled behind. There were three others besides Maleficent and Diablo present—four if one were to count the other winged sidekick—and each considered their unofficial leader's words, all with varying levels of urgency.

Hades, seated in his armchair beside Ursula near the fireplace and holding a fuming cigar in his grasp, jeered, "Hey, so we lost the kooky one! Yeah, you wanna run that by me again how this is a problem?" Then he returned his attention to the cigar and inhaled once more.

The tentacled sea-witch wearing a winter coat and reclining in the identical chair beside him concurred, "I'm with flame-boy on this one." Then, waving her cigar-holding arm for emphasis, she added, "James Hook defected from our cause all for some little revenge scheme so stupid it was doomed to fail from the start! We've been down to eight members long before now!—(animal sidekicks excepted.)" She then inhaled another huff of sweetened tobacco to calm down and exhaled the gathered smoke, reveling in the euphoria it brought. "Oh, you don't get this stuff in Atlantica."

Hades nudged her. "Ha!—I know, right?"

The pair shared a short chuckle before Jafar, only some feet behind Maleficent and with Iago perched on his shoulder, countered, "If you two simpletons would keep your heads out of those clouds for one minute, then perhaps you'd understand the gravity of the situation. Driven to insanity though the departed captain was, his death only proves Xehanort is growing more tenacious in his efforts to stop us. Hook was but a warning. Xehanort's next target will be one of us, and now that he's enlisted a fourth Keybearer to his roster, I haven't the faintest doubt he could destroy us one by one if he set his mind to it."

The pale blue god of the Underworld appeared beside Jafar in a billow of black vapor with one arm around the robed vizier's shoulder (and thusly robbing Iago of his perch) and the other arm stuffing a handful of Hades-brand cigars into Jafar's mouth, much to the other villain's (and his parrot's) extreme displeasure. "Hey, lamp-hunter, lighten up!" With a finger-gun motion, Hades lit every tobacco roll in a quick blaze of fire as he continued speaking, "So, the old man's got a pirate kid on his ship now—so what? Did ya see how badly that resentful little twerp wants to run off and play pirate fulltime? Give me five minutes alone with the kid and I'll make 'im forget all about working for nasty old Xehanort."

Jafar coughed and spat the myriad unwelcome cigars from his mouth, lurching over from Hades' grasp as he tried to recompose himself. Iago, meanwhile, flapped his wings angrily before the death-god's face. "Hey, pal! You ever think you're takin' things just a _little_ too lightly around here?! Right now, Xehanort's buildin' himself a small army and they all got Keyblades with your name on 'em! How long you think you're gonna last when they come gunnin' for you, huh?!"

But Hades ignored the parrot's warnings and grabbed his beak and cooed to him as if he were an infant to be coddled. "D'aaaw! Is widdle Polly upset because he didn't get a cigar too?"

Iago struggled and failed to break free of his grasp. "Hands off! But now that you mention it, _yes!_ Gimme all your Havana!"

Releasing the bird's beak and then snapping his fingers, the death-god produced another cigar in Iago's mouth and lit it with a spout of flame from his fingertip. Inhaling and then blowing happily, the parrot sank dreamily to the floor, "Aw, yeah—now _this_ is the stuff."

"Told you," Ursula raised her own cigar in salute to the intoxicated bird, then returned to her own smoking.

Back on his feet, Jafar glared furiously at his traitorous sidekick, then returned his wrath to his parrot's dealer. "I should have expected this sort of indolent half-measure attitude from you, Hades. Tell us again how you _almost_ depowered Hercules."

The god of the underworld burst into a form of intense, orange flame then. "HEY!" he screamed in Jafar's face, pointing a spiteful finger at his nose. But he gradually lessened his wrath until he returned to his default blue state as he spoke, "I said give me _five minutes_ with little Ventus here! That's all I need to screw with his stupid, spiky little head. I ain't saying Xehanort's not a threat—just that he can easily be weakened." He turned his attention to the Dark Fairy at the window. "Isn't that right, Your Fairiness?—we break apart the old man's kiddies, and then he's completely helpless. …Well, about as helpless as an old guy with a magic key-sword can be. Am I right, here?"

Maleficent was silent a moment, evidently focused on something beyond the window, but at length, she answered. "For all your eccentricities, you aren't wrong, Hades."

At this, Hades smirked haughtily at Jafar, wiggling the folds of skin where his eyebrows should've been for added insult. "Ya hear that, O wise vizier? I'm not wrong."

Jafar scoffed at his accomplice's arrogance as Ursula chuckled in amusement at the death-god's small victory. How she tolerated that rabblerousing mass of flame and dissent was beyond the vizier's understanding.

The Dark Fairy turned sidelong to face her cohorts and clarified, "Young Ventus was quite the surprise for all of us; his existence has been hidden well until now—and to think he'd been planted on that ship for seven weeks! But for all of Xehanort's efforts to conceal the boy from our intelligence until yesterday, this may ultimately prove to work in our favor." The others looked profoundly to her, hanging on her next words. "It is obvious that Ventus is anything but grateful to the Master who showed him the freedoms of piracy and feels only hatred for him and the demi-Heartless servant who destroyed his future by seizing that map to treasures beyond his wildest dreams. And prolonged exposure to Darkness has nauseated our boy at the thought of remaining with his friends who've grown so unfalteringly in the Light."

She paused then, clearly fixated on a particular crime on the other side of the cracked window. Curious, the others gradually joined her at their own paces—first Jafar, then Hades, then Ursula, then Iago (who perched atop Jafar's shoulder with the cigar still in his mouth, earning a spiteful glare from the vizier who promptly confiscated the tobacco roll and crushed it to ashes in his hand)—and they all beheld the same spectacle as their leader: in a scantly-lit alleyway across the street, a young woman in ragged and revealing attire struggled and screamed for her life against a man obscured in a long, dark coat and matching top-hat, who restrained her from behind in a one-armed grip with one hand over her mouth as the other reached inside his black duster. Relatively far away though the other street-level denizens were, none paid the incident any mind and returned to their own misconduct when they decided it would be best not to intervene.

As the villains considered the crime-in-progress with varying degrees of approval or distaste, Maleficent resumed her monologue, half of Ventus and half of the victim below. The imperiled woman reminded her of Princess Aurora. "The seeds of destruction are already sewn. They need only the proper nourishment to thrive."

The Dark Fairy slowly waved a hand in circles around the crystal ball atop her staff and softly muttered fell words under her breath—and from the mind's eye of not-Aurora in the alley, a vague stream of green mist appeared in the distance. Glazed with tears and shaken with adrenaline though her eyes were, the blonde young woman in the assailant's grasp understood the mist drew steadily nearer, almost snakelike in its movements. None could see it but her and the sorceress who sent it.

Maleficent's voice spoke in her mind, _"There is a way out, you know."_

Time almost slowed in the confusion and dread. The woman who wasn't Aurora was seized instantly by the witch's voice and knew the vapor-snake's words were for her. The mist then halted its advance at the head of the alley and settled into a collective nebula of ominous jade that swept across the snowy, cobblestone path. Through it, Maleficent spoke again to the false princess.

_"Look around you. Look at yourself. Darkness is everywhere in your life, even your heart."_

The killer brandished a knife from within his duster and steadily raised it to his victim's throat. Yet for all this, the woman was desperately enraptured by the mist's words. From within that emerald vapor, a black, shadowy figure formed and strode slowly forward—tall and slight, yet clearly horned and carrying an elongated staff.

_"Corruption, perversity, perversion, deception, wickedness, greed…there is power in this Darkness in your life—power to vanquish the forces which oppress you—but you've yet to embrace it. Why? There is nothing but fear to restrain you. Give yourself to the Darkness…"_

Maleficent's ethereal visage sharpened and the sight of her brought a new calmness to knifepoint-Aurora.

_"Let go of the fear which enslaves you. Give your heart—everything that you are—to the Darkness and it shall be your salvation. Embrace it. Give in to the Night…"_

She didn't need words; the woman who wasn't Aurora said everything she needed through her tear-soaked, determined eyes. Her heart willingly accepted the dark savior, and when the killer's knife broke skin and trailed along her throat, only an inky-black vapor escaped the young woman's flesh. Her widened eyes blazed with the sulfuric glow of malice and a throaty, predatory growl escaped her suffocated lips, and as her assailant in the top-hat and duster realized these changes and that his knife was suddenly ineffective, he dropped the weapon and staggered back in fear. After the Aurora of the Night turned her vengeful, hungry gaze around to meet his, her body suddenly twisted and contorted into gruesome shapes, her flesh gradated to the color of blackest shadows, and her height and build grew so immensely that the newly-Heartless woman towered over her would-be murderer.

He whimpered and cowardice drove him to flee, but the sable ogress was upon him at once and she violently tore him apart with her claws, teeth, and monstrous might with such a wild zeal that every fatal blow flung him or his limbs across the backstreet as though he were a blood- and meat-filled ragdoll, savagely decorating the alley walls and road with him. His agonized shrieks flooded the slums of Whitechapel and all in the area turned instantly, confused and disoriented at first, but they screamed accordingly when they finally understood the horror before them. The Heartless snapped her sulfurous gaze to her terror-stricken audience and eyed them indiscriminately with hunger and malice. She opened her fanged jaws and unleashed a bellow of purest ferocity that resonated off the walls of Whitechapel, and all scattered at her pursuit.

The villains observing the scene from behind their window now leered with collective interest at the monster their leader created and the rampage that followed.

Ursula was the first to congratulate her, tobacco smoke fuming from her mouth as she spoke, "I gotta say, Maleficent, I like your style. Make them _want_ the Darkness. Turn it into something they would sell themselves for and then watch those poor, unfortunate souls fall prey to their own deliverance. I may just have to use that."

Hades interjected, "Oh, trust me, sister, striking a legitimate _deal_ with your suckers is _so_ rewarding. Because in the end, it's _their_ fault they got screwed over. You just give them the tools to make a mess of things and enjoy the show."

Jafar asked plainly, "Is this how you plan to unravel Xehanort and his disciples?"

Cigar in his mouth, the god of the Underworld grinned sinisterly at his cohort. His expression said it all.

The Heartless roared. Whitechapel screamed.

* * *

><p>It may not have struck anyone's notice, but take another look at the scene where the villains watch the criminal almost murder that woman in the alley. Now, I don't meant to suggest this was the act of a certain infamous serial killer who was never captured or identified as far as the general public knows…<em>BUT<em>, it's the turn of the century (give or take the Anglo-German Naval Arms Race preceding World War I), the incident took place during the night hours of London's Whitechapel district, the man wore a long, dark coat and top-hat, he attempted to slash his would-be victim's throat before doing Lord-knows-what-else to her, and the woman wore clothing possibly denoting a career in prostitution. If you can guess who this would-be murderer was, _then you are awesome_ (bonus points for identifying any historical/criminal profile inaccuracies).

I know this story is taking a frustratingly long time to update, so, while you wait for me to do so, consider reading MegaFlameHedge's _Antipode_ series. As Mega says in the author's note, _Antipode_ is a character-study of how differently the _Kingdom Hearts_ series might've progressed if Riku kept the Keyblade while Sora went through a very different adventure. Yes, this kind of setup has been tried by others before, but like Reign said on TV Tropes (yes, this story is so good it was recommended on TV Tropes), "While a lot of fanfictions do this, MegaFlameHedge does it _right_." The first story in the series maintains a close parallel to the first _Kingdom Hearts_ game until the shocking twist ending, but still offers some other unique deviations that make it worth reading, not the least of which being Sora's new role and the rewarding character development Riku goes through as the flawed and arrogant teen learns the hard way what it means to be a hero (just _wait_ until you get to chapters 19 and 20...), but the rest of the series goes off on its own, radically different direction, even involving new worlds like those of _Sword in the Stone_, _The Great Mouse Detective_, and _Gargoyles_ and introducing characters from some other _Final Fantasies_ and _Bravely Default_, so there's a lot of cool changes to look forward to. It's got its problems, sure, but what fan-fiction doesn't? If you don't feel like waiting for me to update _February_ or just want to read an epic that's more tonally-balanced, check out MegaFlameHedge's _Kingdom Hearts: The Antipode_.

(I did a goofy infomercial parody of this endorsement on DeviantArt, so you can look at that if you want xD)


	10. The Last Farewell, Phase 02

In case it's unclear, this chapter is a continuation of the burial scene from chapter one.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Ten: The Last Farewell, Phase 02<strong>

**The Land of Departure, on the eve of March…**

Xehanort grunted as he returned to his feet. He picked up the shovel as he arose and looked one last time at the massive grave before walking away, mounds of earth on either side and his work only halfway complete. _This hole still needs something to occupy it and then be reburied_. "And you needn't worry about your students. I'll take good care of them."

Hardly a quarter-mile into the old man's trek from the grassy precipice under the savage tempest that racked him, a rising ache in his heart exploded into a sharp pang of purest agony, spasmodically forcing him to lurch over and fall to his knees and prompting a pained, stifled cry. He dropped the shovel and clutched at his failing heart, suddenly abandoning all thought of returning to his departed friend's castle. All that possessed him then was the will to suppress the fatal affliction and stay alive.

_I will not die here! There is still…so much to do!_

But the mounting anguish claiming the old man's life was adamant, and though he attempted to reclaim his footing and stabilize his breathing, the torment resurged and twisted him off his feet and left him writhing on the drenched grass. Every fractured breath became a battle in itself, each threatening to be the last the aged Master ever drew. Were he still in the empty grave, the deluge of rain might've drowned him.

He sniffled and tried to make peace with the sudden prospect of dying right then and there, his work far from complete. A bitter half-smile graced his ancient features.

_How fitting. Even in death, you vex me. It may not be long…before we meet again._

Armies of thunder and lightning clashed in the black heavens above, intermittently brightening the land with its violent flares. Pelted by unyielding rain, the Master's eyes closed halfway, resigned to his fate.

_I swore I would survive…and be there to see what awaited beyond the Keyblade War. But I was wrong. From Darkness I came…and to Darkness I return._

His tired eyes finally closed, yet in those dimming moments of vision, a part of him swore he saw a figure on horseback far-off in the heavy rain, racing frantically to reach him.

Then, a phantasmagoria of frantic images: the anxious face of a man screaming at him and desperately attempting to revive him, distorted by intermittent shrouds of murk and explosions of heavenly fire.

The screaming man—

The black—

The fire—

Far away, in his mind's withering eye, he saw Eraqus—

—on his deathbed—

Heaven's fire—

The black…

**A stable adjoined to Eraqus' castle, a short time later…**

"Wake up, you old bastard!" Braig pummeled his fist into the old man's weakened heart one last time in his brutish attempt at CPR, and Xehanort finally woke and gasped for air, eyes wide apart and shocked to still be alive. He wheezed uncontrollably, a natural reaction for returning from the grave. When the anxiety settled somewhat, Xehanort propped himself up on his elbows and noticed the drastic change in scenery; where he was last conscious in a grassy field a short distance from the grave-dug precipice, he now rested on the earthen ground of a large, hay- and horse-scented stable. But most notably, this wooden shelter was dry and the storm raged some short distance outside. Braig was crouched beside him.

"What the hell were you thinking?!" his mercenary charged furiously. "I had to revive you _twice!_" he wheezed to catch his breath. "An old-timer in your condition shouldn't be out digging holes in a &#*%ing rainstorm!"

The old man only continued to survey the area, bewildered by his survival, then let his eyes rest on Braig again, both of them just as drenched from exposure to the storm. The mercenary spoke again, this time more composed, "After all that's happened, the last thing we need is another grave to dig. And without you, who'd sign my paycheck?"

The lightest of smiles graced Xehanort's aged features. He sat upright—albeit with some struggle, given his broken ribs as a result of his lackey's primitive attempts at revivification—with one arm resting on a knee. "Have we become so desperate that one old man's life is worth braving such a foreboding tempest?"

"Hey, we're still a fragile movement here, gramps. And with the Heartless so close to our borders, this ain't exactly a good time to lose the guy who made this all possible." Braig stared sidelong into the outside rain with his two brown eyes, a flash of lightning tearing across the darkness. "You may be hankerin' for a good retirement, but our job—the real storm—is only beginning."

He heard Xehanort grunting, then turned back and found him using a stable-door to guide his return to his feet. Braig scoffed a short laugh. "To be honest, I'm surprised you can stand, especially after…" He didn't feel the need to revisit the incident. There wasn't any way Xehanort could forget.

With his limbs trembling, the old Master stood once again, leaning heavily on the stall's door. He cracked a crooked smile, "Oh, you'll find there still remains some fighting spirit in these old bones. I'm not ready to join my friend in the afterlife," a strain in his balance and the smile faded, "but I cannot delay the inevitable forever."

Braig's visage soured. "How much longer you think you got?"

Xehanort shrugged. "Weeks, maybe months. A year would be grand." He sighed. "But I will not live to see what magnificent transformation the Light will bring to the worlds when Darkness finally recedes. But such is nature. Out with the old and brittle vessels and in with the younger, stronger, new ones."

The mercenary's thoughtful expression was unreadable. "Speakin' a' which, you're runnin' a little short on heirs these days. That boy, Vanitas, seems to be all you got, an' he's not exactly leader material." He scoffed in dry amusement. "Neither's me or anyone else you got under contract. Who's gonna keep things runnin' when you're gone?"

Xehanort's gaze, though decrepit and of a man facing the precipice of eternity, was somehow peaceful. "We needn't worry about that. I'll soon acquire three more disciples to my cause. And though my time with them will be brief, I've no doubt they will be molded to pursue the path I'll set before them. Through them, my dream of a universe reborn will be realized."

Thunder pealed and lightning exploded across the fields, and the flare the forces of nature emitted flooded the horse barn, their burst of light enveloping the old man and his mercenary.


	11. Haven for the Wayward Heart

**Chapter Eleven: Haven for the Wayward Heart**

**The crow's nest of the space-borne ****_Jolly Roger_****; late evening of February the second…**

He murdered all his friends. Deny it though Ventus tried, that crew of scallywags he spent the last seven weeks of his life with truly were his friends—his family. And for every lie he screamed at himself to believe otherwise, he no longer considered Terra and Aqua his friends. He wanted to hate himself for it, but at the same time, Ven accepted that situations and people change with time. He simply wasn't a part of Eraqus' family anymore and he had nothing to do with Xehanort's. _So, whose family am I?_

His knees tucked to his chest as he sat on the floor of the crow's nest, he remorsefully studied the eyepatch held in his hand: the very same piece of ebony cloth that belonged to the one he called brother—Jexel—whom Master Xehanort slew. Jexel: the crystalmancer, the boy almost a year older than him that he met in Tortuga—two young hopefuls trying to join Hook's crew, but for vastly different reasons. Jexel: the brother he would have spared and run off to continue sailing the cosmos with had things gone differently. But when the young crystalmancer refused to listen to him and Xehanort severed the teenaged pirate's head, all those adventures Ventus planned to share with his would-be first-mate were shattered into nothingness—only dreams of a future destroyed beyond any hope of repair.

The metal flask of rum at his side that he drank from after his betrayal almost twenty-four hours ago was only a few inches away from empty now. He wanted to stave-off any desire to drink for as long as he would be with Terra and Aqua before finally leaving, but after what he learned in the captain's cabin…

He clenched his eyes shut in a failed attempt to keep further tears from escaping, but the memory of betrayal was too great. Hardly a half-hour ago, before they left London, Ven barged into the captain's cabin to speak with Xehanort—to urgently tell him of how Mr. Smee had stolen the map to Treasure Planet that Ven himself wanted to take with him to finance his reentry into piracy. But instead of a sympathetic teacher willing to grant his un-student one last favor, he found the old man in Hook's chair, already eyeing the activated map in his hand with a ravenous desire apparent on his face. And not far away from the Master stood Smee, humbled in the presence of the old man after giving him the gift, yet also fully aware of how his act of passive aggression had wounded horrified Ventus.

Unaware of the animosity between the half-Shadow and his prodigal student, Xehanort addressed the boy, "Mr. Smee has proven himself a valuable asset to our cause. With the unfathomable treasure this map leads to, we'll be more than able to finance the Coalition of Allied Worlds' efforts and scientific advances in this war against the Heartless. And beyond all military expenses, we'll possess the wealth to rebuild everything the Heartless destroyed ten times over. And just imagine: when all is restored greater than it ever was, we'll _still_ have enough to raise the standard of living for every citizen of the Coalition. But perhaps the greatest prize is this: when this map is activated on a certain crevice on its home planet, it will activate a galaxy-wide portal system that will allow an armada of ships to pass through and appear anywhere in the known galaxy _instantly_! The Heartless will be no match for hit-and-run tactics such as those! Any other pirate would have kept the map and wealth all for himself, but not Mr. Smee. No, he is _exactly_ the benefactor we've needed all along."

So, Mr. Smee had been promoted from petty servant and pet to trusted and revered assistant, and all it took was the complete and utter annihilation of Ven's dreams for the future.

Returned to the present in the crow's nest, Ven clenched the eye-patch in his fist and squeezed his eyes shut, intermittent weeping shaking his alcohol-filled body. _That bastard! He knew! He knew what I was doing and he—he ruined it all anyways! Is this supposed to be his revenge? Haven't I lost enough? First my friends…and now my future…_

Eyes still shut and brimming with tears, he reached his free hand to the near-empty flask at his side, only for another, calming hand to gently grasp his own and stay his reach. Shocked and humiliated for anyone to see him in this state, his eyes flung open and he found Aqua knelt beside him and Terra standing just behind, a pure, soul-piercing sympathy and forlornness in their eyes.

_I didn't hear them come up…! When did they get here—? _The rum must have dulled his senses more than previously thought.

This was truly the first time Ven and the grownups saw each other awake or made contact in over seven weeks, and none expected their reunion to be anything like this. Ven wanted to say something—anything—but all conceptions of speech died before passing his throat. His friends were silent as well, but they held their tongues deliberately. There was only the heart-wrenching silence between them. No "Long time no sees" or "It's good to see you agains" or even a congenial "Give me a break, Aqua!" This was nothing like when his adoptive sister used to startle him from his naps or daydreams in the grassy fields of the Land of Departure or when his adoptive brother would ambush him for an impromptu sparring round before bestowing him with some questionable Terra-brand wisdom; some terrible weight had fallen upon them, and the look in his elder siblings' eyes and their sympathetic composure told Ven they knew far more of his predicament than they should.

He tried again to speak, but Aqua—who stood nearer than Terra—pulled him into a tight, much-needed hug, one of her hands securing his back and the other caressing his hair, positioning his head against her shoulder—something to mourn against. Astounded and speechless, the boy pirate was far too stunned by the storm of conflicting emotions racking his heart and mind amid the unexpected hug that he honestly couldn't fathom that he was supposed to hug back. Instead, Aqua broke the silence, purest empathy in her voice, "We know everything. About the pirates, Jexel, the map… It's okay. Let it out."

"H—how did…?"

"The note you left on your bunk," Terra answered. "You never retrieved it after Xehanort discovered the map. It's okay. Let it out."

When shock finally subsided, Ventus remembered how compassion worked and he shamelessly wept, _wailed_ into Aqua's shoulder, wrapping his shaking arms around her as his shoulders bobbed and his heart bled without fear of indignity. Did this mean they expected him to stay? Were they alright with the prospect of him leaving and never coming back? And what happened to Terra's eye and cheek that they were covered in medical gauze? Suddenly, those things didn't matter. There was only the now. There was only Ven's bared, vulnerable soul and the kind, loving angels who accepted him despite every flaw and corruption that shamed him.

Aqua's fingers stroked his golden tresses as the boy's hot tears ran down her shoulder. Speaking to him in a hushed, soothing tone, "Shh—it's okay. Just get it out," she and Terra gazed upward through the transparent energy field encompassing the _Jolly Roger_ and stared out into the majestic ocean of space. Countless planets, stars, and nebulae surrounded them as they sailed through Heaven's domain, and for the first time in eleven months—when Ventus first ran away and only a few weeks before Eraqus died of that enigmatic virus—they could look into the heavens without the weight of loneliness leaving a gaping void in their hearts.

Some time passed and the three sat reclined against the wooden railing of the crow's nest, all three of them surveying the vastness of space together for the first time in almost a year: Ven in the middle with Terra's left arm slung over his shoulder and Aqua holding the younger boy's hand. The near-empty flask of rum stood discarded off to the side. They passed through a nebulous cloud of violets, pinks, and blues and Aqua commented, "I'll bet you got to see space like this all the time, huh?"

Ven was slow to answer, his eyes still visibly reddened from mourning, but spoke genuinely all the same, "Yeah. Sailing with these guys…it was really a lot of fun. There was so much I got to do and see…" His voice faltered and there was a notable pang of anguish in his words. "It's hard to believe those days are gone."

Terra looked on him morosely. "We should've known this would be difficult for you." The other two turned to him, surprised at his confession. "You've always wanted to explore and make new friends, and I guess being a pirate and joining a crew finally gave you that opportunity. We knew all that when we considered you for this mission, and our only concern was the constant danger you'd be in. We never considered you'd grow attached to all this—to the crew, the adventure, everything…" His words were sincere. "I'm sorry we had to take it all away. We should've known…"

Ven turned his gaze away, looking ahead into the surrounding nebula again, and calmly replied, "I don't blame either of you for what happened here. This was my choice. I chose to go undercover and commit to this job all the way to the end. So, don't blame yourselves."

His solemn maturity came as a surprise to them. He simply wasn't the helpless, childlike soul they'd grown accustomed to caring for in the three years they lived together in Eraqus' castle. For better or for worse, Ven was growing up, and the previous seven weeks of his formative process were violently undone in one tragic evening, leaving him seeming as a broken shell. But not permanently broken—there was enough left of him to be redeemed, rebuilt. His friends understood this and resolved to be the hands that guided him if he was willing to accept them…if he was willing to stay…

The nebula passed, the stars returned, and a faint, silvery glint sparked in the corner of Ven's eye—a sparkle not of celestial origin, but manmade—and he turned to Terra's left hand draped over his shoulder to inspect the faded glimmer, and on his friend's ring-finger was the metal band of wedlock. The boy pirate nearly choked in flustered shock at the sight, drawing both his friends' attention. Aqua probed, "Ven? What's—? Ah—" and before the words escaped her mouth, Ven had grabbed and held up her left hand, inspecting it for a ring complementary to Terra's. Breath left him in stupefied confusion when he found her fingers bare.

"T—T—Terra—!" Ventus stuttered in a rush of frayed emotions, "Y—you're married!—and not to Aqua!"

The grownups exchanged confused glances at each other, but when the shock subsided, they each began to chuckle until full-blown laughter escaped them. Ven looked back and forth between them, anxiously waiting for clarity.

"No, Ven," Aqua replied amid the hilarity, "I am not married to Terra. His wife's name is Naomi." She briefly snorted from the laughter before continuing," And I think you'd like her. She may only be a civilian, but she's also one of the smartest and bravest people I know." A clear admiration was evident in her voice. "The way she does field research with Radiant Garden's top scientists to study the Heartless so we can better understand them… And it's not just the Heartless; she's got this—this way of understanding people, too, and helping them work through their problems, even when things are really bleak. And that's another thing about her; she's really kind and selfless, too."

Terra stared suspiciously at his blue-haired friend. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say _you_ were the one married to her."

The young woman's eyes widened, completely unprepared for that comment. But a second later, she tempered her surprise into cunning. "You better watch your back, Terra," she teased playfully, "or maybe I'll make her _my_ wife."

And while Ven was left to nervously ponder just how serious she was about her intentions and her sexuality (he never gave much thought to the latter regarding her or anyone else until now), Terra only composedly shot back in a matching playful tone, "So you're a better ladies' man than me, but you won't take custody of my kids so easily."

At this, shock convulsed Ven into taking a gagged inhalation of air as his only means of expressing his emotionally-confused astonishment. _Wha—?! Children?!_ He jerked his head at once back to Terra and coarsely barked, "You've spawned?!"

With those words, Terra and Aqua exploded into laughter once again while Ven was left to reel in the overwhelming confusion. When Terra finally wiped the joyous tears from his eyes, he explained after the final guffaws petered out, "No, Ven, I have not 'spawned,' as you so graciously put it. Naomi already had a son a few years back. His name's Sora, and he honestly reminds me of you a little bit. She adopted Sora's friend, Riku, after he lost his family when their world was destroyed. I'll introduce you to them when we reach Radiant Garden."

Aqua leaned closer into them, a lighthearted smirk adorning her as she inquired of Ven, "You really thought Terra and I would get married?"

"W—well—!" the boy stuttered, his cheeks flushed.

"That's really sweet," she finished as further laughter escaped her. _It only makes sense, though. Terra and I practically raised Ven. It's not surprising he'd think of us as his parents._

Failing to recompose himself, Ven uncouthly exploded again, "But—when did this happen?! Was I really gone that long?!"

"Eleven months lasts a while, Ven," Terra replied. "A lot's happened to us and the worlds since you've been gone. I met Naomi after we evacuated as much of Destiny Islands as we could, almost three months ago. We've only been married eight days."

Ventus continued to stare at him, silently bewildered. "That's…not a very long time to know someone, is it?"

Terra shrugged. "Times are changing. Most people live in constant fear of their world being the next one the Heartless will swallow up, and the few who survive their world's destruction have other refugees to contend against for dwindling resources with governments unsure how to provide for them, so most of them end up in ghettos or prisons. And where there're too many people crammed together and not enough resources, there's crime. Whoever escaped the Heartless still has to fight their fellow survivors, all while holding their breath until the Heartless strike again. Any day could be someone's last, even ours. When your future looks that bleak, well…suddenly, time's a luxury we just can't afford. If we want to explore life—if we even get the _chance_—we have to hurry, because there may not be a tomorrow. Naomi and I understand that, so we didn't wait too long to get married after we fell in love. It wasn't at first sight, but our love is real. It's kept us going. It's made us stronger. And that's all we needed to know we want to spend the rest of our short lives together."

Calmed down though he was, a visible uneasiness still influenced Ven's countenance. "But…it's just…I dunno, I always thought you and Aqua would get married. This is too weird."

Aqua put a hand on her younger brother's shoulder to comfort him. "To be honest, there were times when we thought about it. We had some on- and off-again affairs in the past—some casual and some more serious—even right around the time you first showed up. Heck, one time we even considered eloping before reason settled in. That's how we were at times." She was interrupted by the sound of Terra's uncontrolled sniggering. Aqua glanced over to him, unamused, and stoically chided, "Terra, whichever of our passionate trysts your perverted mind is recalling, could you not think about it in front of Ven?"

The brunette only stilled himself long enough to reply, "You don't want me to tell him about Caer Dathyl?"

At this, Aqua yelped feverishly as a mad blush overtook her features. "_Especially_ not that! You promised to never speak of it again!"

Terra tried—and failed—to hold in those explosive giggles behind his hand, leaving poor Ven once again in the dark. He timidly asked, "Um…what are you guys talking about…?"

Terra opened his mouth to speak, a devilish expression upon him, but Aqua scrambled to her knees and hastily covered Ven's ears before screaming, "Don't you dare tell him!" Her muscles gradually loosened then as an air far more devious and sinister emitted from her, her ominous smile a harrowing indicator that she was about to change tactics. She uncovered Ven's ears and let her arms hang casually over his shoulders as she rested her chin on his hair and continued, "…That is, not unless you want him to hear about our time at the Palais du Louvre."

Terra gasped a gasp so gasply that one would scarcely recognize him as the calm and confident Keybearer he so typically was. Words failed him, leaving him to point an accusing finger at his former lover as his whole body shook of nervousness before he finally exploded from his shame-clogged throat, "That was _not_ my fault! It was _dark_—I couldn't tell who was who or what was what!"

"Or what was whose," she added impishly, her head now just above Ven's shoulder.

Face red and quivering with indignity, Terra finally blarghed and slumped over in defeat. "You win," he muttered pathetically.

It might have been their nearness to each other, but with Aqua languidly pressed against him and in light of her victory over Terra, her laughter seemed somehow more beautiful and silvery than usual to Ven. Her arms were around him, her bosom against his back, and her laughter in such near proximity to his ears. Was she unaware of how this could embarrass a teenage boy such as him, or did she simply not care? A bashful rosiness duly graced Ven's features, one which neither of his friends noticed, distracted as they were by each other.

At length, the red in his face desaturated enough, the blonde ventured with a sheepish smile, "All that insane stuff you guys went through…you must've really been in love."

Aqua chuckled, her breath warm on his neck. "You bet we were. Every time we were together—whether it was in a flare of passion or just a casual moment we shared…" her words shifted focus from Ven to the one-eyed brunette, "Terra, you made me feel alive. In a way, you still do." At this, Terra looked up at his friends again, surprised—if not warmed—from the sudden tone-shift. Aqua continued, "And even though we could never make the romance between us last, I still value every impact you made on my life. The fact that you're still my best friend after all the ups and downs we've had should be a testament to just how valuable you are to me, and that should never be taken for granted or devalued just because our relationship is now platonic."

Terra really…was not expecting that, as it showed in the light blush on his face. Aqua seamlessly transitioned from shutting him down to lifting him back up, yet both approaches led to his embarrassment. _How does she do that?!_

Still mildly flustered, Terra averted his eyes, scratched his temple, and replied, "Uh…thanks, Aqua. I…'best friend' you too."

That got a satisfied giggle out of her, and that was more rewarding than shooting her down with _"Y'know, sometimes you are such a girl."_ It wouldn't have felt right returning her heartfelt compliment with a childish insult, but darned if it wasn't tempting.

She'd since released her affectionate hold on Ventus and propped herself in a seated position with her hands on the floor, returning to her earlier monologue, "Love works in strange ways, Ven. Feelings can come and go and you don't always end up with who you thought you would. Most often, you don't marry your teenage sweetheart. You both grow up, you meet other people, and life goes on. But Terra and I are still the best of friends and we'll always treasure the experiences we had—you don't ever have to worry about that." Then, she quirked her eyebrows and a mischievous smile formed on her face as she play-poked Ven in the ribs, earning a quick squeak and a wince from him as she probed, "And what about you, ha? You have any off-world girlfriends from your swashbuckling days exploring the high seas?" A potentially dangerous subject, but she hoped this wouldn't salt any fresh wounds.

Terra hadn't considered it, and now Aqua's inquiry piqued his interest as well. He looked to Ven expectantly, his expression just as teasing as Aqua's. Ven flushed madly between them, then he sprung to his feet and leaned over the far side of the railing, inhaling and exhaling loudly to catch his breath in the panic. Though his friends attempted to abstain from laughter, he made it just too difficult and they soon guffawed at his reaction.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Ven," Aqua called, genuinely apologetic despite her mirth. "I didn't mean to embarrass you _that_ much."

"Does this mean you really _do_ have a string of lovers awaiting you on different worlds?" Terra pressed.

Aqua jabbed him. "Terra!"

"What? You mean to tell me you can't see our little Ven turning out to be quite the ladies' man?"

"Our Ventus would be a perfect gentleman and he'd never dream of cheating on any maiden he's confessed his love to."

"Who said it was cheating? Maybe it's all a consensual harem; women throw themselves at him willingly and he's a respectful lover to each of them."

Aqua considered it a moment, looked studiously at flustered Ven, and conceded with a playful smile, "You could be on to something there. Our Ventus has always been quite the looker. I wouldn't put it past him to have the girls so head-over-heels that they would agree to be his lovers all at once. Are we on the right track here, Ven?"

He turned back around to face them, now redder than ever, and waved his hands before them. "No—that's not it! That's not it at all!"

They laughed their cheery laughs again, wiping away tears in their eyes from their kid brother's priceless reactions. Terra replied, "Well, if you don't tell us about your love-life, we'll just have to make one up for you."

"How many girls do you think he's brought up here?"

"Guys," Ven anxiously barked, "I've never had a girlfriend!"

"Really?" Terra asked in half-disbelief. "All that time breaking the rules and living as you please and you never sought the company of attractive women?"

"Well—" Ven stuttered again, "—not, like…I mean, I've _talked_ to plenty at the taverns and the villages and we always had a good time—but nothing like _you're_ describing!"

"Aww," Aqua admired, then turned sidelong to the bandaged brunette, "See, Terra? Our Ven _is_ a perfect gentleman."

Terra shrugged. "Could'a fooled me."

Ven almost snapped back with a _"What's that supposed to mean?"_ but reservation stilled his words. He recalled key moments of his days as a pirate and hesitantly brought himself to reveal, "Nah…the real playboy…that was Jexel." The grownups' demeanor sobered at once and they looked to standing Ventus in genuine surprise. They hadn't expected him to discuss something as personal as his dead crewmates so soon—possibly never. Ven continued, "Or, at least, that's what he thought of himself. He struck-out more often than not, but that never brought down his spirits. He had fun trying. The funny thing, though: when he finally met a girl he swore he was completely in love with—Marina—he changed immediately. He tried being respectful and got all nervous whenever she was around or when we talked about her…" There was that misty-eyed nostalgia overtaking him. He brought a hand to wipe away some forming tears, unconsciously using the one that gripped Jexel's eyepatch. When he realized his action, he jolted in surprise a moment, then stayed as he was, a quivering half-smile gracing him.

Understanding the weight of the topic, Aqua carefully ventured, "So, what happened? Did he get the girl?"

Ven lowered the eyepatch-grasping hand and continued wistfully, "Eventually, yeah. He had a _lot_ to prove, though. She knew what a player he was and that didn't make it easy. So, I tried putting the good word in and I guess it worked. It didn't last long, though. It couldn't. When Hook decided we were going to raid her village next, Jexel and I helped her and her family escape before the rest of the crew found her. We stole her a small Gummi Ship, pointed out the safest systems to travel through and—" Something bitter caught in his throat—regret?—but he gradually swallowed it and resumed his tale, "…she wanted us to come along. I _really_ wanted to, but knew I couldn't until Vanitas was safe, and Jexel…" he choked again and wiped away more of the saltwater gathering in his eyes. "…he had this look. Like, he really didn't know what to do. He _wanted_ to run away with her, sure, and I kept trying to convince him to go, but he said he wouldn't go anywhere without me. And you know I—I couldn't."

His friends gaped at him in wide-eyed pity and awe, understanding how the rest of this tragedy played out.

Ven was on the verge of all-out bawling again. "If I just forgot about the mission—forgot _everything_ about Vanitas, Xehanort, you two—and just went…!" He sighed, and what seemed a coming squall of anguish settled into something he held inside, just below the surface of his hot tears. "I could've saved my best friend, but I chose to kill him over a complete stranger instead." Ven remembered Smee's accusatory words from when the half-Shadow confronted him about the map to Treasure Planet last night. "Who is Vanitas to me? Why did I choose to save _him_ instead of…?"

Terra and Aqua were standing at his side soon enough, both pulling him into a heartfelt group-hug. He trembled from the turmoil somewhat while in their grasp, and though tears ran, he avoided any dramatic outbursts. He'd had enough of those. With a last few sniffles, he pulled back a little and his friends gave him space. Another sniffle, some wipes at his drenched face and eyes, and then he finished his story. "Marina got away. We don't know where she went or if she's even still alive: only that she escaped the pillage. And that's—that's the last we ever saw of her…only five days ago."

There was the troubled silence, then Terra placed a hand on the young man's shoulder. "Ven, no matter how everything turned out, I don't want you thinking of yourself as some heartless murderer. That was a difficult choice, but you did everything in your power to try to save your friend _and_ Vanitas, and if nothing else, you helped that girl and her family escape Hook's wrath. The fact that you're grieving for the friends you've lost only shows that you _do_ have a heart. There's not many people who could endure this, but you're pretty remarkable. Even now, I can tell how much you've grown, and even though it's difficult, you really are becoming a man."

Looking up to his elder brother, Ven made a slight grimace. "Is it always this hard?"

To which Terra replied, "No. Some days, you get your eye gouged out."

Though stupefied at first, a small, appreciative smile crept over Ven and a brief, sputtering laugh escaped him. "How d'you think your family's gonna take it?"

Terra shrugged, smiling lightly. "Naomi will be terribly worried at first—probably for a while, actually. She's one of the most courageous people I've ever met, but…" he chuckled to himself. "She's also the most worrisome when it comes to those she cares about. I did nearly die back there. A scar and an eyepatch will take some getting used to. Sora and Riku will probably think it's cool, though."

Considering Terra's words a moment, Ven regarded the strip of black cloth in his hand that once belonged to Jexel, the limb that carried the memory of his friend slightly trembling. _I wanted something to remember you by. This is all I could save before Xehanort threw together that pyre, and you in it. But…what use do I have for an eyepatch?_ Looking back up to Terra, Ven suppressed his sorrow and extended the hand to his brother, surprising him when he offered the black cloth. "So, impress them," he said of Terra's stepsons. "Or give Naomi a heart-attack. Whichever comes first."

Speechlessness was all Terra was capable of in those moments after his brother's selfless offer. That last trinket of a close friend forever lost… _And he's giving it to me…?_ A small gathering of mist formed in Terra's left eye at the gesture, but the emotional maturity that came with his years and experiences allowed him to refrain from anything dramatic. With a gentle, heartfelt smile, the bandaged, brunette knight graciously accepted the blonde pirate's offer. "Thank you, Ven. This really means a lot." He wanted to say more, but what else could he say? Sentimentality wasn't his strong suit.

A small half-smile from the boy becoming a man, "Don't mention it," but the gift wasn't without sacrifice on Ven's part and Aqua knew this immediately by the subtle, pained expressions on his face, and it was for this selflessness that she grew to love him even more. Chernabog's prophecy loomed again in her mind—_"It's been there all along, but faith in your allies and your own abilities has blinded you to its presence. The Darkness grows and so shall consume you. __**He**__ shall be your undoing…"_—and the scene of Ven's altruism before her dashed any doubts the demon tried to imprint on her.

_Honestly, I don't know why I'm still thinking about this. Why would a Heartless speak anything but lies to me? It's all some twisted effort to make me doubt my family and I won't fall for it. There may have been doubts at first—about Terra and Ven—but they've proven they haven't let Darkness overtake them. Their hearts are much too noble for that._

And it was in dwelling on this that she remembered another scene not unlike the one playing out before her: perhaps two-and-a-half years ago, if not more, when Ventus doubted his own abilities as a swordsman and future Keyblade Master and a simple act of benevolence on Terra's part—passing down the wooden Keyblade he'd trained with for years unto the younger student—had brightened Ven's spirits and encouraged him to continue his training. This exchange of small but significant gifts between brothers…

Terra spoke again. "You know, Naomi and I never had time for a proper ceremony."

Ven raised an eyebrow. "Huh? How do you get married without a ceremony?"

The brunette answered, "Well, the official part is just signing a marriage certificate. That's all the government cares about. And since life's been hectic for everyone lately, signing the certificate's all we've been able to do. We still want an actual wedding. So, if you're available…"

Ven's eyes widened, anticipation of joy slowly rising in his throat, "What?"

Terra smiled warmly. "You wanna be my best man?"

Grinning widely and with a small blush on his face, Ven was only breathless for a second before answering like his old self again, "You bet I do!"

Aqua giggled at their exchange, a sharp, cheerful snicker breaking through as well. They turned and Terra asked, "What?"

Stifling her outburst, Aqua simply remarked, "You two would make the weirdest brothers."

Terra and Ven exchanged confused glances, both caught off-guard at their sister's observation. Muddled words fumbled in their mouths when they tried and failed to retort and Aqua only giggled further. She smiled lovingly at her family, surrounded on all sides by the majestic lights of space. _Now's as good a time as any, I suppose._

"Hey, now that we're finally together again," Aqua started as she reached into her pocket, then finished as she produced the items she searched for, "I can finally give you these." Three bright, star-shaped pendants, all crafted from stained glass—one aquatic azure, another ethereal emerald, and the last solar amber—all ornately rimmed with metal and all casting faint, enchanted glows. The young woman beamed as she held them up by their strings for her amazed friends to see. "They're called 'Wayfinders,'" she explained as she handed the emerald pendant to Ven and the amber to Terra, "Back on Destiny Islands, there were these trees with star-shaped fruit, and the fruit represented an unbreakable connection between whoever shared them. So long as you and your friends carry good luck charms shaped like one, nothing can ever drive you apart. You will always find your way back to each other."

Ven especially marveled at the charms' supposed power. _I'll always find my way back to them, no matter what? …I guess, even if I do decide to run off and be a pirate again, I wouldn't be separated from Terra and Aqua forever. So long as we share these, then no matter how far gone I am…I'll always find them again?—or they'll find me? _He smiled fragilely, the thought bringing welcome warmth against his fears that choosing freedom would mean losing his family forever.

Aqua continued, "I would've liked to have given you these before the Mark of Mastery Exam…" _If Ven hadn't run away months before… If Master Eraqus hadn't died so soon after…_ She shook the encroaching gloom from her mind and finished, "…but that doesn't matter now. The past is the past. We're here now, and that's what's important."

She noted the overflowing gratitude in Ven's features as he studied the pendant cupped delicately in his hands. He looked up to her, sheerest thankfulness and admiration in the long-lost soul's eyes, "Thank you so much, Aqua."

And that childlike gratitude and love was enough to warm Aqua's heart. She smiled brighter, chuckled, and tousled the boy's golden hair. Then, she glanced over to Terra, who only stared into his gift with a thin, enigmatic smile. Aqua assumed he was simply too moved for words, having received both Ven's cherished eyepatch and now this good luck charm, and then she added, "Technically, you're supposed to make them with seashells—and the fruits themselves are probably extinct now," _Now that Destiny Islands is gone, and all_—"but I did the best with what I had." A small, creeping laughter bubbled in Terra's throat, presumably in overwhelming joy, or so Aqua hoped. She further assured them, speaking through Terra's sniggering, "And I did weave a little magic in them, so that should compensate for—"

Terra burst out into full-blown hysterical laughter, drawing the annoyance of Aqua and the confusion of Ven. Guffawing until he wiped the tears from his left eye and the wound in his side threatened to reopen, the brunette barely calmed himself enough to ask, "Aqua, _where_ did you hear about this?"

Indignant, the blue-haired woman answered, "From Sora, of course. What better source for info of a Destiny Islands tradition than a Native Islander?"

Terra only shook his head, smirking and holding back further laughter. "Oh, Sora…my poor, naïve son," He said to himself.

Still cross with him, Aqua asked, "And what's _that_ supposed to mean?"

Terra exhaled and ran a hand through his hair before explaining. "I heard about this from Naomi when we were still dating. That star-shaped fruit you were talking about: that's called the 'paopu fruit,' and the tradition goes, when two people share one, their destinies become forever intertwined. It's, ah, usually for…romantic gestures."

Ven restrained an explosive chortle, but Aqua wasn't amused, instead shocked ghost-white and speechless with a gaping mouth at her unintended deed.

When some seconds of varying awkwardness and silent hilarity passed, Ven inquired with a cracking smile, "Aqua…did you just propose to us?"

_Now_ she was flabbergasted, screaming and stuttering at her blunder and waving her arms in front of her. "No! It's nothing like that! It's just—!"

"You know," Terra interrupted, "if Naomi finds out she's suddenly involved in a four-way polygamous relationship, it could make for some awkward dinner conversations—not to mention sleeping arrangements."

Aqua pulled at her hair and seethed, "Terra, you _know_ I didn't mean it like that!"

Ven asked his brunette friend plainly, but with an air of impishness, "So, if we both marry Aqua, does that make you my husband-in-law?"

Completely red-faced and annoyed, Aqua held out her hands demandingly. "Gimme the damn stars."

Her friends only held them closer and turned partially away and Terra replied, "No."

Aqua lunged at the older of the two polygamists and they tangled in a childish scrabbling contest for possession of the benignly painful Wayfinder. Terra laughed at the situation he found himself in until Aqua used the full weight of her body to slam him to the floorboards (the impact of their fall knocking over the sealed rum flask and causing it to plummet to the deck through the spaces in the railing), where she subdued him in a painful arm-bar and leg-scissor submission hold to make him release the Wayfinder. The brunette gagged and exclaimed, "Hey! I just got out of the hospital, remember?!"

The blue-haired woman clenched harder. "You're young. You'll walk again." Of course, the severity of Terra's wounds were significantly reduced by earlier healing sessions after he was checked out of the hospital, but no one paid any conscious mind to this. Instead, Ventus only marveled at the surreality that these two wrestling monkeys were revered Keyblade Masters and he was only an uncivil pirate. Clearly, the universe made a mistake somewhere.

Straining on the verge of defeat, Terra called to his blonde friend, "Ven! Save my engagement star! Marry Aqua for the both of us!" and cast a minor wind spell to propel the pendant from his hand to Ven's, who fumbled with the unexpected pass before finally catching it.

Releasing Terra from the death-grip, Aqua clumsily tried to sit up and extended a hand to the more obedient of her brothers. "Ven," she commanded, "gimme the Wayfinder."

Instead, Ven held both his charm and Terra's tight and leapt backwards over the rail of the crow's nest, calling a jovial "I do!" before his flight turned into a descent.

Alarmed at the stunt, Aqua scrabbled to her feet and leaned over the edge, where she found Ventus some meters down, laughing hysterically with his knees hooking over the rungs of the wide rope-ladder connecting the nest to the deck. He was familiar with the layout of the ship, sure, but he was also at least buzzed from drinking before Terra and Aqua found him, and it was for this that Aqua worried about his present safety. Or, she would've if she wasn't incensed at all the teasing.

In seconds, she'd practically flown down to Ven's position on the rope ladder and was soon wrestling with him upside-down along the twine net, Ven giggling madly all the way.

"Just gimme the—! C'mere, you!"

But Ven's will was adamant and his reflexes lithe, making him impossible for Aqua to maintain a solid grip on. And in the midst of their rope-affixed tangling match, Terra flung himself over the nest's side and slid down the ladder and collided into both of them, sending the three hurtling further down the net until they sailed uncontrollably over the ship's edge—

—and slammed right into the magic force-field encompassing the _Jolly Roger_, the immediate area of the supernatural shield becoming visible in frayed hexagons upon impact. And with the dazed Keybearers planted firmly against the spherical barrier like bugs on a windshield, they slid slowly down the curved contour with a trail of smeared saliva in their wake until the three came to a stop at the base of the force-field some meters under the bottom of the _Jolly Roger_. To land in a dogpile _underneath_ a seventeenth-century pirate galleon floating through space yet remain perfectly safe atop a nigh-invisible magic floor…well, that was uncanny. Were it not for the magic field recycling oxygen and keeping space out, they would very well have plummeted into the cosmic sea in that one uninterrupted direction until acted upon by an outside force. But now…

"Terra, we are dead and it's all your fault," Aqua charged, still somewhat dazed.

"No, it's totally Ven's," Terra quipped. "Everyone knows it's Ven's duty to cover any and all dense surfaces with fluffy pillows, and he has failed us. What do you say to that, Ven?"

"Could everyone get off me?!" Ven pleaded from beneath his two friends.

Laughing, Terra scuttled off from the top and Aqua rolled aside soon after, leaving Ven pancaked on the magic floor. Miraculously, both his and Terra's Wayfinders were still in his hands.

Aqua reached to reclaim the amber pendant, but Terra beat her to it and took the Wayfinder for himself, flashing a cheeky grin at her that sharply contrasted his heavily-bandaged face. Aqua pouted at him, "We're not getting married."

"I know," he said back. "It's just fun to mess with you."

Ven groaned and Aqua helped him sit up. She addressed them both in a steady, unreadable tone, "I just wanted to do something nice for you two. Our family's been broken for a long time and we're only now together again. Master Eraqus is gone—Ven, I don't even know if you're going to stay—and for a while, we were even worried about losing Vanitas. It's important now more than ever to make sure we'll never lose each other again. That's why this is important to me. That's why…"

She wouldn't cry in front of Ven, but both of her friends understood the distress beneath that façade of strength she wore. Ventus placed a hand on her shoulder and she turned to find him staring pleadingly into her eyes. "Aqua," he said, "we really appreciate what you've done for us. And even if I do go away again, I'll keep this with me," he held up the Wayfinder. "That way, we'll never be truly apart. I'd forgotten for a while, but you and Terra really are my family, and you're the one that made me remember. As far as I'm concerned, this is the greatest good luck charm anyone could ask for."

Just the silent amazement on her face proved to Ven he'd said the right thing, and when Aqua's surprise settled into a loving smile, she chuckled happily and wrapped an arm around him, holding him close in a one-armed hug. "Now, _that's_ the kind of reply I was hoping for." She turned to Terra and outstretched her other arm. "You too, Terra. Get in here." Moments later, the elder of her brothers was at her side, held under her other arm as he reached his own around his brother and sister.

They stayed there, holding each other and seated atop the invisible barrier under the _Jolly Roger_, admiring the tranquility of the solar system—majestic nebulae, beautiful worlds, dazzling stars—and the three of them knew: no matter what distance fell between them, no matter what dark forces schemed and struggled to destroy them, they would never truly be apart.

A nearby Gummi Ship flew beside the _Jolly Roger_—the very same Xehanort and his disciples traveled in to reach London—piloted by Vanitas to ensure they returned it to Radiant Garden in one piece. Various Unversed tended to other areas of maintenance in the out-flying vessel, leaving Vanitas surrounded only by the manifestations of his negative emotions for company. He observed Terra, Aqua, and Ven together at the base of the magic shield through the black visor of his helmet, a mixture of disarrayed emotions muddled through and around him: some akin to longing or corrupted into envy, but there were others linked to empathy and those still that reeked of disdain. All of these fueled a barrier of false superiority he'd constructed around his darkening heart. If there was any sorrow, he never confessed it, yet the Unversed around him were evidence enough of the vast-reaching spectrums of negativity that coursed through him.

He thought of Eraqus' former students: _Those poor fools… Everything they've fought for—everything they think they've accomplished… None of it will last. Unless they learn to submit or stand aside when the time comes, it won't be long before they lose it all. It's only a matter of time…_

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><p>Two real-life locations which bear some relevance to different Disney films are mentioned in this chapter. Can you find them and name the movies they're related to? (There are multiple correct film answers for the French one.)<p> 


	12. Borderlands, Phase 01

And now for the answers to the previous chapter's end-note challenge that nobody cares about: The first real-life location mentioned was Caer Dathyl, a Welsh Castle featured in _The Chronicles of Prydain_, the book series that _The Black Cauldron_ is based on. The second was the Palais du Louvre, a former royal castle in Paris, France, and I would have accepted any Disney movie set in France as the correct answer for that one (_Hunchback_, _Beauty and the Beast_, _Aristocats_, _Ratatouille_, etc.).

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Twelve: Borderlands, Phase 01<strong>

**The Dark Forest beyond Radiant Garden; dawn of February the third…**

The rushing snow beat relentlessly against the chronicler's brow as she stood atop a forest cliff overlooking a Heartless-infested canyon in the treacherous snowstorm. Through the lens of the 8mm camera, the hooded woman in heavy winter attire immortalized via grainy film the creation and maintenance of the Heartless army stationed in a chasm beyond the great city of Radiant Garden. There in the distance was a shadowy cesspool where ever-growing monsters were bred and strengthened in the tens—if not hundreds—of thousands. Their sizes varied from knee-high shadow to the rarer Darkside colossus, and for all their collective darkness and hatred of life, the very forest they spawned in had withered and corrupted into a nightmare befitting demons of their nature. Even the sky itself had churned and roiled into a black mass of crackling energy. But high upon the clifftop, Naomi and Ienzo were beyond the Heartless' reach, their greatest threat instead being the severity of the snowstorm blasting against them.

Behind the chronicler and her nine-year-old assistant, a platoon of winter-garbed soldiers busied themselves with their own tasks—setting up enormous long-range cannons and loading the appropriate artillery into them as part of establishing the new command post—and the elite guards, Dilan and Aeleus, oversaw their work. Naomi and Ienzo were here under their jurisdiction. Scattered behind the company were the handful of armored trucks they arrived in.

Sharp-eared and dreadlocked Dilan remarked to his equal of the chronicler and the child, "Nothing about this sits well with me. Why would Even send those two civilians this far out into Heartless territory? How were they even permitted past the city's protective walls, and what madness compelled them to accept this mission at all?"

With a grunt, musclebound Aeleus replied, his eyes focused on the forest mouth some distance behind them, "What difference does it make? The woman and the boy are expendable, as are we all in Even's eyes."

Caught off-guard by his peer's supposition, Dilan glanced at him, "What prompts this indictment? You suggest Even dares to send us, the two greatest soldiers in Radiant Garden's military, to the Heartless borderlands merely to die? Why choose to believe this as opposed to his faith in our abilities that incited him to send us to this perilous frontier? If there's a region to be won, we're the ones to be deployed, and if he believed there was any danger too great for us to overcome, why send Naomi and Ienzo under our watch? Think you he would sacrifice his own stepson and Terra's wife so flippantly?"

But Aeleus gestured to their forces, "Look again at those we command," and Dilan obeyed. He beheld not a company of warriors, but of sniveling and trembling whelps in military uniform, almost all of them seeing to their duties and handling crucial equipment with fidgeting hands and paranoid restlessness in their collective demeanor—all accidents waiting to happen. Dilan had noted that few of the soldiers were familiar to him and some rookie mistakes had been made on their drive to this precipice, but he'd dismissed their apparent unprofessionalism as standard fear of delving so deep into Heartless territory.

Aeleus continued, "These are not the elite men and women Radiant Garden prides its military strength in, but sniveling children and offscourings, drafted straight from the hordes of refugees in the gutters and the prisons. Surely, you noted their incompetence on the way here. They know firsthand the horrors of the enemy we face. They've seen their home-worlds destroyed in the Heartless conquest and, for this reason, they quiver. Even has sent us to the frontlines with cannon-fodder."

All among the company trembled and feared, Dilan observed. All but Naomi and Ienzo: the only civilians present and the only ones without weapons or sufficient combat training. The dreadlocked knight wondered, _Why do they stand resolute when all others cower in the face of this danger? What sets them apart? Is it sheer madness or ignorance that grants them confidence, or are they simply that dauntless?_

At length, Dilan queried, "So, what's your point, Aeleus? Do you suppose Even means to condemn us to death?"

Aeleus sneered. "Is this truly such a wonder?" When Dilan's gaze pressed him for an explanation, the taller and stockier of the knights clarified, "It's no secret among our ranks that Ansem the Wise has been reclusive of late, scarcely seen and negligent of his royal duties. As such, morale has suffered throughout the kingdom and those less shrewd or more ill-intentioned have usurped what power our sage-king has lost command of. Doctor Even in particular has grown bolder in his actions. Where legislation or refusal from the king once prohibited his more extreme methods, he now pushes his radical agenda with little obstruction from those still loyal to the monarchy.

"In the time since Ansem sealed himself off from public view," Aeleus continued, "the good doctor has taken command of several military operations, employed questionable specialists in crucial missions—namely, Terra's wife and his own stepson—and need I even mention those experiments he conducts on the Heartless we've captured under his orders? He claims he's on the verge of discovering a virus to destroy their whole, wicked race on the molecular level, but no mortal who's delved so deep in the Darkness as he now does has ever resurfaced sane or alive."

Wide-eyed from his equal's charges, Dilan almost whispered, "Do you believe our Even is fated to become a Heartless?"

"Have you considered he already has?"

Dilan raised an eyebrow as he turned to face him completely. "I'm not one for conspiracies, yet you present your case so eloquently."

"I would rather not indulge in such theories either, but the doctor's behavior of late has been erratic, paranoid—wild, even. Simply put, he's losing his grip on sanity and this is evident in his actions. Consider the two civilians we brought with us to this treacherous land; one is the wife of a powerful warrior—the other is his own stepson. Any rational-thinking man would understand the significance of these connections and the consequences if anything went wrong. But as he is, would Even feel _any_ distress if his own son were to perish in the field? Does he even care what wrath Terra would inflict on him if he learned who was responsible for the death of his wife?"

Aeleus took a breath, then proceeded, "Remember also that Even is the one who chose this site for the mission—this site _specifically_—despite that our efforts would be better spent elsewhere. He claims our presence here is of the greatest importance, yet remains oblique when explaining why. All of this—the void of power left in Ansem's disappearance; Even's reliance on questionable sources and powers; his disregard for life and major consequences; those twisted experiments on captive Heartless and his constant exposure to Darkness; his increasing signs of insanity; that he chose _this_, the border of the Heartless' nesting grounds of all places for this mission; and that he's sent _us_, Radiant Garden's elite, so deep into enemy territory with only a platoon of quivering rookies for support—it's as though he _desires_ us to be massacred by the Heartless…"

The knight-captain had nearly grown livid recounting the scientist's sins, but, with a breath, he calmed himself and concluded, "Even's not the man we once knew. He may not even be a man anymore. I've read accounts of scholars and mages who sought to control the Heartless in the days of old, yet fell prey to their own ambition and became the Heartless' playthings. Control over them might not have been Even's endgame, but in light of every suspicious incident and breach of character thus far, is it truly unlikely that the good doctor has become the Heartless' puppet?"

Considering his words a moment, Dilan nodded with a heavy weight on his stalwart heart. "It's a rarity for you to wag your tongue as long as this…but I would be a fool to dismiss your findings. I've long suspected but long denied much of what you've professed and can deny these things no longer. Though he was once our friend, Even has become fickle, paranoid, and remarkably suspicious since he assumed the power Ansem left behind. It pains me to believe it, but it is more than likely he has sent us to our deaths at the behest of the same Heartless he experiments on. What's our course of action?"

A small hand tugged on Aeleus' greatcoat before he could answer. The elite guard brought his gaze downward to find young Ienzo standing there, his ocean-blue eyes unnaturally calm but entreating as he held up his photographic camera for the sentinel to examine. Mechanically, Aeleus grabbed the device and he and Dilan observed the gravelly, greyscale snapshots captured within. It took a moment for their minds to register the discovery, but when they did, both appeared visibly alarmed at the evidence: crude silos and other pieces of heavy machinery barely visible in the dark-shrouded distance, and emerging from what appeared to be an assembly line were dozens of Heartless, all multicolored, variously shaped and limbed, and all with the familiar emblem of the black heart cross-stitched by red sutures across their torsos. Most were species they'd never seen before. Aeleus looked up at the distance in revelation, muttering to himself and his ally, "So, the rumors are true. The Heartless have developed the machinery and the intellect to create artificial life."

"Then these recent 'Emblem Heartless' aren't merely accidents of nature?" Dilan queried. "They're legitimate experiments?"

"And the Purebloods have the means to mass-produce them," Aeleus concluded in subdued dread. He returned his gaze to Ienzo and ordered, "Boy, bring Naomi here." The silent child nodded, his expression and countenance impossible to read, and then he ran off. Aeleus called to a nervous soldier fumbling his duties, "Trooper!" The young man panicked, but quickly tried to compose himself, saluting and waiting for his order. "Take the chronicler's watch. Alert us if anything happens."

"Y—y—yes sir!" he stuttered and nervously ran to relieve Naomi of her lookout.

Aeleus sighed, closing his eyes and bringing a hand to his forehead.

Dilan spoke behind him, "Aeleus, if these findings are true, then our war with the Heartless has only begun. And with hundreds of thousands of off-world refugees already over-packed in our own world, where will we turn once Radiant Garden falls?"

"Nowhere. The Coalition has done everything in its power to aid us, but they can barely fend for themselves. This is where we make our last stand. This hollow bastion is all we have left."

The dreadlocked knight scoffed at his partner. "So, you're calling it that now, too, ha? Spirits divine, how are we to inspire hope in these poor, lost souls if we, their heroes, have none?"

"I speak the truth. A hollow bastion is all this world has become: a façade of a stronghold, where strength is a lie and the cowards in office and the cowards on the streets murder each other before the invaders ever set foot in our realm. Our power may seem imposing, but it is only a bluff."

"But to validate that dissenter propaganda—"

"I do not speak these words in despair or in contempt of our government. Only in fact. Do not delude yourself that our Coalition is anything but a council of withering superpowers in their dark ages, but do not neglect your onuses either. Simply accept what is and carry on."

Dilan scoffed again. "Find peace in accepting the inevitable. Is that it?"

"That is all."

"You'd make a fine Nobody."

"And you an exemplary martyr."

Dilan cracked a wry half-smile. "Alright, then. Martyr to Nobody: if we are to accept the inevitable, where does that leave us if Even has sent us to die? Do we accept our doom without resistance?"

"If we're correct, Even is only a smaller symptom of a greater illness. But until that plague of corruption and death overwhelms us, we will not stop fighting. So long as we draw breath, it is our sworn duty as Radiant Garden's elite guard to weed-out dissenters and traitors such as Even. When the chronicler woman and her boy return with their findings, we'll depart and arrest the mad scientist."

The dreadlocked knight shrugged in compromise. "Accept that death is coming, but don't stop fighting until then. I can work with that."

Aeleus snickered. "Martyr."

His comrade parried in the same humor, "Nobody."

At length, Ienzo returned to the sentinels with Naomi close behind. Upon reaching the elite guards, Terra's wife saluted them almost as expertly as any real soldier and spoke dutifully, "You wanted to see me, sirs?"

"The salute isn't necessary, Naomi," Dilan replied. "You aren't in the military."

She lowered her hand, but continued standing at attention. "Just trying to remind the others there's such a thing as composure, sirs," she regarded the dozen-odd fear-stricken soldiers all around them.

Dilan interjected, a dark glower in his eye, "These are the soldiers of the Radiant Garden elite—" (a pungent lie, he and everyone knew, but the military had a reputation to uphold) "—and you will remember your place when next you choose to insult them, _civilian_."

Naomi balked in mild surprise at the reproach, suddenly ashamed for speaking so brashly, but soon recomposed herself and nodded submissively, "Ye—_yes_, sir. Sorry, sir."

"Your analysis, chronicler," Aeleus curtly demanded, returning straight to business.

"The evidence should speak for itself, sir." She handed over her own 8mm camera to allow them to review the film, her shoulder-length brown hair flowing from her hood in the wintry gale. With her voice steady and her emerald eyes undaunted, she continued, "It's as we've feared. The Purebloods really have manufactured the technology to create artificial Heartless. At the rate they're building them, coupled with how quickly the Purebloods themselves are spawning and evolving, I'd say we have less than a month before we have to evacuate Radiant Garden."

"How far off is this 'Emblem factory' from our current position?" Aeleus queried.

Naomi jutted her thumb over her shoulder. "Several miles northeast, beyond the Pureblood breeding grounds. It's not easy to see the smoke because of how much they've already darkened the sky, but it's there."

The sentinels peered in the direction she indicated and found she was right; there was considerable smoke being produced by the Heartless' industrial revolution, but it was nigh impossible to discern through the snowstorm and against the malevolent sky. Dilan sighed before commanding, "Show us the factories."

At once, Naomi and Ienzo turned back around and started for the cliff's edge with the knight-captains close behind, passing by the dozens of occupied soldiers and their focus purely on the objective ahead. _Such a shame she wasn't drafted as well_, Dilan mused. _She'd make a far better soldier than these sniveling cowards._

Only meters away from where Aeleus sent the trembling rookie to take Naomi's place at the lookout, Aeleus called to him again, "Trooper, you're relieved. Return to your post."

But he didn't move. Contradicting his previous nature, he was now frozen stiff, as though petrified at the manifestation of his worst nightmares come true. Was standing watch atop the edge of a towering cliff hundreds of yards over the border separating the natural forest from the dark truly so terrifying for a draftee of the Radiant Garden military, but not so for a civilian woman and child? Aeleus didn't care and gripped the rookie by his shoulder, spinning him around as he shouted in his face, "I gave you an order, soldier!"

But the face he saw was one drained of all color and life, instead paled by unfathomable trauma, his jaw agape and eyes glazed as quivering breaths drew unsteadily from his lungs. A deep feeling of sympathy overtook Naomi, the very same maternal response she felt whenever Sora was scared of the shadows in his closet or when Riku mourned the loss of his birth-parents. She reached to calm the unfortunate rookie and ease him back into the world of the living, but Aeleus already shoved him back to the ground near the other soldiers, snarling: "Get back to your post!"

When she glanced back at the other two in their company, she found Dilan expressing slight traces of concern for the petrified soldier and Ienzo displaying faint shades of an emotion between confusion and offense (he wasn't an easy child to read), but neither had the time nor the will to object to Aeleus' manner.

And when they finally redirected their attention to the cliff's edge, they found what the young soldier had frozen at. Only a dozen yards directly below and scaling the cliff-side was the sable bulwark of a massive Darkside, its monstrous claws carving into the rocks it silently climbed and its vast, yellow eyes surging terror into the four who witnessed its near-finished ascent.

Aeleus whipped back and screamed at the platoon, "Defensive positions! We're under attack!" The order was received, practically expected, and those same soldiers who clambered over the artillery they worked to set up then panicked to draw their automatic rifles, swords, and lances, some even manning what few massive cannons they'd finished building. In moments, Aeleus, Dilan, and Ienzo retreated back to the numbers of their small army. Naomi was right behind them, but tarried when she remembered the petrified rookie who couldn't move, and she found him where Aeleus had left him: on his back in the snow, far too horrified to move.

Gritting her teeth, she darted to his side and pulled him to his feet. "C'mon! On your feet, soldier!" she encouraged, but before they could make the first step in their retreat, the ground beneath them collapsed, destroyed by the splintering tremors of the Darkside's claws as it scaled the cliff. The soldier remembered how to scream only as Naomi lost her grip on him and he plummeted with the earth and snow hundreds of yards into the dark chasm. Naomi had just barely saved herself during the fall by clinging one hand onto a fistful of earth still solid enough to hold together—a stunt that knocked the wind from her lungs—but she found herself dangling only precious meters above the dark goliath's head. She might've screamed had she the energy.

With another long haul of its gargantuan arms, the Darkside's body ascended just over hers, its head now at eye-level with the brunette woman and drawing dangerously near. She clung tighter to what remained of the cliff wall, now securing minimal footing, but in her terror, she wondered if it might've been a more merciful fate to let gravity end her life. The dusky colossus leaned closer, the tendrils wrapped around its mouth drawing back to reveal a cavern of vast and sharpened teeth and a serpentine tongue as it roared its malice against her, its bellow a force stronger than the snowstorm's gales: further evidence of the Heartless' rapid escalation on the evolutionary scale. The Darkside drew nearer…

…only to shoot its head back in howling agony as it reached a weighty hand for the spear suddenly lodged into its left eye, and poised atop the giant's shadowy face and driving his ornate lance deeper into the cavity that was once the monster's eye was Dilan, roaring valiantly at the Heartless ten times his size. Detecting the goliath's reactionary hand, Dilan retracted his lance and glided to the side, swinging his blade and tearing open the black limb. The Heartless howled further and the knight drove his spear yet again into its skull, stabbing and stabbing as dusky ichor foamed and sprayed over him.

Amid the onslaught, Naomi caught sight of a churning and roiling over the Darkside's shoulders, and from the homegrown bog, scores of Shadows and Neoshadows emerged and clamored to reach the lone warrior atop their host's disfigured skull.

"Dilan! Watch out!" Naomi cried, and at her warning, the sentinel spun 'round to find the new arrivals leaping at him from all sides. There was no time to defend himself.

But a hail of bullets blasted a majority of the lesser Heartless into oblivion, the cavalry commanded by Aeleus, who called to his equal, "Grab the girl and let's go!"

Nodding, Dilan bolted from the Darkside's head and secured Naomi against the rock wall. "Hold on to me," he ordered. Not wasting any time, she wrapped her arms around him and he used his strength and agility to leap from crevice to crevice until they returned to the fractured top of the cliff. And at the instant of their landing just a small distance beyond the first wave of riflemen, a vast laser-beam projected from the Darkside's remaining eye incinerated a half-dozen of the soldiers firing down on it. Aeleus, whose reflexes outmatched those of his inferiors, had leapt back in time to avoid total obliteration, instead narrowly escaping with deep burns against his left arm and leg as he fell back onto the snow.

"Aeleus!" Dilan called at his and Naomi's landing. She released him when they touched the ground and acted before her savior could issue an order to find Ienzo and take cover. She had another task to accomplish first. Both she and Dilan raced for Aeleus' side and tried to lift him to his feet when the blast residue subsided. "Stand up, Aeleus," his dreadlocked friend urged as the wounded sentinel struggled to stay upright even with both Dilan and Naomi securing his arms over their shoulders for support. They limped only a few meters before a great, black wave washed over the already dark sky. Turning, they found the dusky curtain to be a legion of winged Heartless gathering in airborne droves over the platoon's encampment. What few heavy cannons were manned and operational instantly discharged their rapid-fire rounds at the multitude of fluttering demons overhead. But for all their bullets, the panicked warriors could scarcely put a dent in the overwhelming forces and the bat-like monstrosities were quickly upon them, snatching sword- and gun- and spear-wielding soldiers up from the ground or otherwise ravaging them on the spot.

A towering Stealth Sneak de-cloaked from nothingness and destroyed one of the artillery cannons, swinging the hefty debris at the nearby swordsmen and obliterating them on impact.

The trio hastened for the nearest armored truck, knowing retreat was now the wisest option. And in their Aeleus-burdened withdrawal, Naomi finally regretted not searching for Ienzo first. _Where is he? Ienzo, I hope you're safe…_

"In there!" wounded Aeleus directed towards the nearest armored truck as his allies helped him limp in that direction. Their immediate plans of escape where dashed when an all-too familiar oversized golden laser-beam streaked past them and annihilated the vehicle in a burst of flame. The Darkside's mutilated head had reached over the top of the cliff, its remaining eye smoldering from the discharged beam, and now the rest of it worked to stand over the edge. The moment it did, they were all doomed.

"Retreat!" Aeleus bellowed to any who could hear him in the maelstrom. "Retreat!" And so the three raced for the next truck, maneuvering through the hordes of infantrymen slaughtered all around them in the one-sided battle.

"Naomi," Dilan called, "leave Aeleus to me! Find Ienzo and drive as far away from here as you can!"

She would've argued, knowing full well that following those orders meant condemning the sentinels to their deaths, but Ienzo's safety remained her top priority. Nodding, she responded, "Stay alive," and ran off to find the boy, muttering prayers to her home-world's gods that they wouldn't all die here—that someone would survive to deliver the news of the Heartless' growing numbers and warn Radiant Garden's government before their world, too, fell to Darkness. She looked back only once: to find Aeleus now standing over an injured Dilan and crushing the skull of an advancing Stealth Sneak with his hefty ax-sword.

She called Ienzo's name repeatedly amid her sprint to find him in the carnage, weaving between fallen combatants and explosions of energy in the relentless blizzard. None of the Heartless seemed particularly interested in her, instead focused on the humans who were actually armed.

That is, until a wolf-shielded Defender emerged from the snowstorm and its shield's demonic maw outspread to devour her, halting her dead in her tracks and earning a terrified yelp from her. But the sound of metal crunching and fluids splashing behind the disembodied werewolf's head halted the beast's advance at once, and as the sentient shield fell with the life draining from its eyes, Naomi found the armored, humanoid Heartless behind it had been skewered through its back by a soldier's broadsword. Moments later, that same soldier who saved her was snatched away by a passing Wyvern.

As just moments before, Naomi had enough breath to scream. But she stifled herself thereafter and pushed through the fear violently thundering in her breast to continue her search for—

"Ienzo!" She'd found him. He was several yards away and cornered against the side of a truck by a trio of charging Angel Stars and too overwhelmed by horror to register her voice. In one of the exceptionally rare times since she'd known the wordless boy, he openly displayed an intense emotion—fear—and it chilled her to the bone.

Diving to the ground to scoop up a discarded automatic rifle and rolling on her knees once she'd procured it, Naomi screamed and fired upon the trio of Emblem Heartless that encircled her ward, annihilating the otherwise elite-status monstrosities in seconds. Panting from everything endured, she dropped the heavy firearm and bolted to the boy's side. "Ienzo! Are you alright?!" She hastily checked him over for wounds, relieved there were none but still distraught at the child's traumatized state. Miraculously, he still held onto the cameras they'd brought for reconnaissance. He was nothing if not committed. Ienzo nodded his head feverishly to let her know he was fine and she then grabbed his hand and led him inside the truck he'd huddled against, helping him into the navigator's seat on the right. Seconds later, she climbed over him to reach the driver's side and found the keys tucked into the overhead sun-visor. Beyond the driver's side window, the Darkside unleashed another surge of concentrated energy into a far-off truck, obliterating it on impact. In the time it took for Naomi to thrust the key into the ignition and kick the truck into drive, a handful of soldiers smart enough to recognize an escape opportunity when they saw one darted into the back of her truck, providing cover fire from the rear and helping as many of their friends board as they could as Naomi drove the haven on wheels into the forest from whence they arrived.

She never dared to look back, but the soldiers providing cover fire had no choice, and Ienzo saw enough in the rear-view mirror; the Darkside finally stood at its full height on the precipice and what few human combatants remained were overwhelmed by the Dark forces. No other trucks escaped and all who fled on foot were quickly slain in some ghastly form or another. But Naomi didn't look back. She couldn't. Someone had to look forward and get them through this, and she was the one in the driver's seat.

A few small teardrops formed in Naomi's emerald eyes, but she brushed them away to keep her vision clear. She needed all her attention set on driving through this dark forest while battling the snowstorm that raged around them. Somewhere, where the sky was uncorrupted and winter storms were less severe, the sun was rising. Sora and Riku were likely stirring from the guest beds at Kairi's house and ready to brave a new day of adventure, unless they'd once again stayed up adventuring past their bedtimes. But regardless, Naomi wanted to see them again. And she wanted to see Terra and Aqua again. That's what fueled her resolution and she knew every heartbroken passenger of the vehicle had somebody in their lives they wanted to reunite with as well. She couldn't stop, no matter how badly she wanted to simply break down and weep.

She had to be strong for her survivors.


	13. Borderlands, Phase 02

**Chapter Thirteen: Borderlands, Phase 02**

Minutes passed. Naomi withdrew her hood, no longer needing it in the weatherless vehicle, allowing her shoulder-length brown hair to finally breathe. Glancing to her right, she saw Ienzo, the youngest of her survivors, sitting soundlessly in his seat, Naomi's 8mm video-camera and Ienzo's photographic one resting in the backpack on his lap. This wasn't his usual mute pensiveness, but a dead-eyed hopelessness she never wanted to see again in a child after Sora and Riku dealt with the loss of their home-world. She called soothingly to the boy, "We're going to be alright. I know…" she paused to swallow the grief rising in her throat, then continued, "…it was terrifying, but we're still alive. You were really brave back there, and smart to run to the truck when you couldn't find me. You're a very bright young boy."

But he was also scarred for life. She saw it in his eyes and the way he held himself. If left untreated and neglected like Even so recently handled him, he would be stunted as an emotional cripple—more so than he already was. He was far too young to see the ugly side of existence and lose all faith in the goodness of life. She had to reach in and pull him back. "And maybe—" she hesitated, wondering if this was the smartest way to help him, "maybe there's a reason for all this—why we survived when so many others didn't. …Maybe there's a role we still have to play, and whoever out there's guiding our destinies isn't done with us just yet. I want you to think about what that, what this second chance means, because _I'm_ certainly glad you're still alive." But not even she fully believed her own advice. Not since Destiny Islands. When her home-world fell, she questioned if its native pantheon had perished as well, and if her gods were no longer with her or had never been there at all, who was protecting them? Was it some greater, incomprehensible force of Light that guided them to safety as so many refugees and Gummi-capable civilizations now believed, or was it all random acts of luck and chance that influenced their lives as so many others believed? She may have been losing her faith, but Ienzo was far too young for that.

And again, the boy's silence was unsettling. _C'mon, Ienzo, talk to me!_

But what remained to be said? She wasn't even sure the advice she gave him was helpful. Maybe it pushed him farther away. Her own sons were far easier to deal with when they lost their world, but someone like Ienzo, who concealed almost every emotion and rarely spoke, only fell further beyond her reach. _Say something! Anything to let me know you're alright!_

As if he read her mind, the morose child turned his silver hair-obscured gaze to the driver beside him, opened his mouth to speak…

…and was instantly seized upon by a new wave of terror, bolting upright in his seat as he screamed, "NAOMI!" and pointed past the driver's window to redirect her attention. Alarmed by his outcry, Naomi veered her gaze out the glass portal to the dark forest thicket at her left and found a monstrous pair of bouncing, flaring crimson eyes staring back at her as the large, shadow-obscured beast to which they belonged kept an even pace beside the truck. The monster's silhouette was that of a massive quadruped racing at speeds Naomi didn't imagine mortals could naturally run. The visage of the Heartless was hidden enough by a web of branches and blustering snow to reduce human perception of it to a nightmarish contour, and it was this that respawned the terror in Naomi that she thought she'd escaped when they fled the precipice.

She felt no shame in screaming at the sight of the monster or when it rammed its ultra-dense bulk against her side of the truck, shattering glass and crushing steel as the vehicle momentarily tipped on its side wheels before concussively returning all tires to the ground. The soldiers in the separated back compartment shrieked as well, caught completely off-guard at the surprise attack, and the first of those to reorient themselves swarmed their driver with a bedlam of frenzied questions, the most clearly heard among them being "Driver, what the hell was that?!" and "Is there something out there?!"

But assessing that another impact was imminent, Naomi screamed back to them, "Brace yourselves!"

And the reptilian mammoth smashed the full force of its weight against the truck yet again, the whiplash preventing either Naomi or Ienzo from getting a good look at its features. But mid-jolt, Ienzo noted in his mind: _Since when do the Heartless have red eyes?—they're always yellow._

When the truck recovered from the second tremor, Naomi floored the ignition and gradually passed the towering hunter. She saw the flaring red orbs of the shadow-obscured Heartless pass behind the back of the truck and she bellowed to the handful of soldiers in the back compartment, "It's right behind us! Can you shoot it down?!"

Her answer came when what passed as the rapidly-promoted senior officer ordered her troops, "Open the hatch, boys! We're blowin' this sucker to hell!"

Dreadful hesitation permeated the back compartment until some brave or foolish souls finally moved into position, then the others followed and one nearest to the back pulled a lever that retracted the rear sliding door overhead, and all that remained of the platoon stared directly into the hungry, monstrous visage of the nightmare that pursued them.

"Oh, gods!"

"What is that thing?!"

"Shoot! &#*%ing shoot!"

A deafening cacophony of gunfire roared uninterrupted in the back of the truck. Naomi couldn't afford to glance back or up to the rearview mirror and examine their progress or even see what the Heartless looked like and Ienzo was too frightened to consider it. But a sudden howl from the beast, a tumultuous and unnatural racking in the back of the truck that shook the whole armored vehicle, and the ensuing cries of terror and bloody murder from the soldiers inside made Naomi fear the worst. _It's inside! The Heartless—! It's __**inside**__ the truck! Dear gods, what have I done?!_

The beast's thrashing weight repeatedly jolted chained rubber from snow to the dissonance of gunfire and screams until the enclosed maelstrom shook the armored truck over on its right side and sent the doomed vehicle and all in it crashing into the thicket. To Radiant Garden, airbags were a product of inventors' imaginations not yet conceived, so while Ienzo faced no danger of post-collision suffocation due to his unqualified age and height, his side of the truck still took the brunt of the crash when it toppled on its side, and inflated fabric might have been more merciful than shattered glass and sprawling steel. At some point mid-wreck, he lost all consciousness.

But unlike Ienzo, Naomi wasn't fortunate enough to circumvent pain and trauma by blacking-out. Hands clenched ghost-white around the steering wheel, she withstood every tempestuous tremor, jolt, bruise, and slash inflicted upon her, breathless beyond the point of screaming and fearing any millisecond of the crash would be her last.

But when the ravaged truck finally reached the end of its long, skidding halt in the forest's brambly embrace, heart-attacked Naomi found she was somehow still alive. Her seatbelt saved her from a grizzly death and kept her in her seat even with the vehicle tipped over on the passenger's side, and with her frenzied heart settling and when enough breath returned to her after a short expanse of time, she found the windshield was all but decimated as a score of sharp-enough branches were speared through the former glass portal, some dangerously close to having impaled her but instead skewered through other parts of the seat.

Soon, a throaty grumbling resonated from the back compartment of the truck, and the reawakened shock of her circumstances restored every flood of terror within her as the desperate wailing and gunfire from what soldiers remained with the Heartless beast recommenced. At the sounds of carnivorous of roars and fatal disembodiments, Naomi shot her worried gaze aside to unconscious, unmoving Ienzo, beyond her reach against the snow-compressed pile of glass and steel on the other side of the branchy spears between them. Unclicking her seatbelt and feverishly pushing aside and breaking through the wooden bars, she descended to the toppled-over passenger's side until she reached the boy, her feet planted beside him as she hastily crouched down to check his pulse.

It was still beating.

But there was no time to rejoice. The Heartless surely knew where they were and would be upon them in seconds if they remained. So she scrambled her way through the branch-decimated windshield and dragged Ienzo out after her, struggling to scoop him into her arms as she fought to gain her footing on the snowy ground. And before she could, she froze upon hearing a final soldier flee from the open back of the truck. Then, the carnivorous roar followed by a fatal scream, wild gunshots, and the sound of teeth and claws eviscerating flesh.

The resonances of tearing and chewing continued long after all but the blizzard fell eerily silent, and Naomi swore all breath and blood-flow ceased within her in those nerve-wracking moments. _There's no way I can grab Ienzo and make a break for it—it would hear everything and be upon us in seconds. Any attempt to fight or flee would be suicide._

She noted then that the Heartless had remained in the back with the now-dead soldiers longer than expected. _Why has it stopped to eat? Does it not know we're still alive? Did it even see us in the first place?_

And then it roared triumphantly into the storm-obscured sky, boasting its successful hunt.

_That answers that._

The situation assessed, she reconsidered her options. _If running and fighting are suicide, all we can do is stay hidden and hope it won't sniff us out._

With the Heartless on the other side of the overturned truck, Naomi stealthily, delicately tried to ease Ienzo's unconscious body back inside through the decimated windshield, her gloved hands intermittently trembling from the cold and the fear. _Get him back inside. Get in there with him. And stay hidden until it goes away. But I need to hurry before it decides to search the area!_

A colossal rush of dark weight and a streak of twin crimson flares rushed past her in that instant and skidded to a grinding halt in the snow as the monstrous shape swerved just behind her. Pupils shrunken and heartbeat hypersonic, Naomi froze in unparalleled terror in the beast's sight, Ienzo only just returned inside the tipped vehicle. Whipping her gaze back to the Heartless, she finally beheld their merciless pursuer and screamed for all her shattering soul was worth as she clumsily scrambled back-first against Ienzo to keep herself positioned between the boy and their predator. In a subconscious motion mid-scramble, she yanked up a dagger-length shard of broken windshield glass and desperately brandished it as though it were a proper sword before the monster.

But not even bullets had punctured the Dark Hide's skin, and she saw the Heartless there in all its murderous glory. Gallons of soldiers' blood was splashed against its giant, midnight-blue face and dripped profusely from its rancorous maw, through its razor-edged teeth, and gathered into puddles on the snow at the indigo claws of its forefeet. Twisted, membranous spikes of bright red protruded from the left and right sides of its skull, and a column of that same material constituted the elongated spinal protrusions on its back. An extensive tail lapped from its rear, and at its end was garnered four lethal spikes made of the same keratin as its claws. And those crimson lights, once thought to be its eyes, were only a vapor emanated from beyond the outlines of its true eyes: a pair of unblinking, carnivorous orbs, yellow and sulfurous. Those cesspools of malice ogled Naomi just as hungrily as it had those slain soldiers, and its blood-soaked tongue keenly licked its dripping fangs.

The longer Naomi beheld the Heartless, the heavier the glass knife became and the more she wanted only to break down and cry.

But it was then, shielding unconscious Ienzo with her back to him, heart pounding faster than her body could support, and staring the Dark Hide in its voracious gold-and-red eyes, that Naomi remembered why she'd been so brave when facing the Heartless—why the prospect of traveling deep into the borderlands that separated the humans from the Darkness' nesting grounds hadn't outwardly shaken her nearly so much as others who joined her on this expedition and those that came before it. It was because she _forced_ herself to be brave—brave enough to inspire valor in every weak link that couldn't provide for itself. That had been her duty as a teenage mother when her family and lover forsook her. It was what she forced herself to become as a single parent when Armageddon came to her world and Sora needed answers and a strong, heroic figure to believe in when their native deities failed. She molded herself into the survivor Riku could admire and follow to the end of days when all he knew was lost forever. It was the role she strove to perfect, as iron sharpens iron, when she met Terra: the hero who first saved them from the apocalypse and then from the refugee camp when he took them into his own home—and he was the man who was always meant to be the father of her children.

By now, the burden of protecting others and giving them strength to believe in had been engraved into Naomi's spirit; so long as there were others in need of a hero, she would never allow herself to be weak, to be _exposed_ when the victims turned to her for guidance. That's why she put on a brave face when so many others feared for their lives and that's why she defended dying Ienzo with only a shard of jagged glass in her grip against a monster she didn't have a chance in hell of walking away from alive. But now that no one else was looking, she was allowed to be honest with herself. The steel bones which always kept her steady in the face of danger devolved into calcium and collagen, allowing terror to tremor through her all-too human form as it did before there were those weaker in her life worth protecting—before she assumed the mantle of warrior and protector that accompanied motherhood. Here in the storm, making her feeble stand before fanged death with all other witnesses deceased or cataleptic, she allowed herself to tremble, to quiver, to cry. And yet, she was grateful Ienzo wouldn't be awake to experience whatever suffering awaited them, and, through stubborn willpower, she re-steeled herself for the doom they faced. Though tears still poured and fear remained, her eyes glared defiance and her teeth grit bravery.

Unable to stand, but between the monster and her boy all the same, she brought her second hand to join the first in gripping the glass shard in an attempt to quell the tremors in her bones, and she dared to meet those flaring, golden eyes as she affirmed to the predator, "If you try to touch him," she swallowed the rising will to break down, then valorously spat, "I'll tear you apart!"

The Dark Hide was undaunted. It prepared to pounce. Naomi braced herself for the finale, determined to see her life's end with her eyes wide open.

_Ienzo…Riku…Sora…Terra…forgive me._

Jaws agape, the monster leapt—

—and was abruptly smote into the ground by what seemed either a bolt of lightning or a falling star, majestic and terrible. The midair collision kicked up massive waves of snow and tremored the earth in every direction, prompting a squeal and no small flinch from Naomi, who flailed her arms in front of her eyes as she was jolted onto her back from the shockwaves.

But eventually, the titanic spray of snow subsided and the tremors dissipated, and Naomi slowly returned her gaze to the now-lifeless Dark Hide, its once-yellow eyes murky and void. When breath returned to the shaken woman, it was sparse and heavy, and her eyes dared not believe the miracle manifested before her for fear of falling victim to a divine lark where the Heartless would be restored to un-life the next moment and end her. But when at last she accepted this one stroke of fortune amid a dawn of tragedy, she beheld the form of a cloaked young man atop the Dark Hide's skull kneeling behind the ichor-soaked katana which he employed for the execution, gripping it with both gloved hands clasped 'round the hilt and his hood-covered head bowed behind it. But at length, he stirred, gradually returning to his feet atop his prize as the tattered brown, hooded poncho he wore over his black peasant's clothing fluttered in the turbulent breeze. It was a wonder those were all the layers he needed to stay warm in the blizzard. His right hand returned to the scabbard at his side while the left remained on the sword's handle and forcefully jerked it out from the fallen monster's skull, then swiped the four-foot-long blade astride to remove the creature's black blood from deadly metal, and when his weapon was clean once again, he returned it to its sheathe.

It was upon noticing this warrior was left-handed and seeing enough of his features beneath the hood that awe-struck Naomi began piecing together just who he was.

_A left-handed swordsman who wields a katana…_

_A young man with hair of silver and eyes the color of emerald…_

_A warrior in peasant's clothing whose power rivals the Keyblade Masters…_

_Is this really him?—the "Hero of Hollow Bastion?"—the "Wingless Angel?"_

The name at last escaped her lips when the champion stepped off the Heartless' corpse and approached her.

"Sephiroth…"

He knelt before her, and Naomi finally saw just how young he was—easily somewhere in his late teens. His long, unkempt silver bangs fell over either side of his face and framed—if not partially covered—his green eyes beneath the hood. A disarming peacefulness adorned his countenance and he spoke with a voice strong yet serene in spite of his youth, "How badly are you injured, ma'am?"

In all the horror endured, Naomi had forgotten the cuts and bruises sustained from the crash. Breathless and awed, she didn't remember her wounds until the young hero placed a hand on her bleeding and welted cheek, and without even a word to activate the enchantment, the restorative glow of a high-level healing spell washed over her, sealing all lacerations and waning every bruise until her entire body was as undamaged as it was before the crash.

An eyebrow raised in mild amusement, Sephiroth spoke, "You can breathe now," and Naomi was flustered a moment for realizing she'd held her breath all that time, and finally exhaled, bewildered at the wonders of the miracle-worker whose sudden appearance was, in itself, a miracle.

But she snapped herself back to full attention soon enough and hastily moved aside, revealing comatose Ienzo just behind her, beyond the virtually nonexistent remains of the windshield of the tipped-over truck. "Can you save him?!" she desperately besought the hero.

His eyes briefly widened just a bit. He hadn't expected to find a child this far beyond Radiant Garden's walls.

"He—he has a pulse," Naomi informed him as Sephiroth peered closer to examine Ienzo's condition. "It's just—he took the worst of the crash and I don't know how long he has…"

But the hero's hand was already placed against the open wounds of the boy's face, where the blood ran most severely and the most cranial trauma was sustained. The radiance of the restoration spell was already at work. Sephiroth reported, "He'll live. But he should still see a doctor. Magic can only do so much." When his work was finished, the silver-haired teen returned to his feet and examined the wreckage. "Are there any other survivors?"

Naomi shook her head. "I doubt it. I heard that Heartless taking its sweet time mauling everyone apart. No one could've survived close-quarters with it for that long."

Half a minute later, Sephiroth saw for himself Naomi's assessment was accurate when he finished checking the unrecognizable remains in the back compartment and surrounding area of the armored vehicle. Naomi, meanwhile, held unconscious Ienzo close to her, relieved for his safety and attempting to keep him warm.

"Bring him over here," the young hero called them to the cadaver-strewn back of the truck. "It's out of the blizzard's way. You'll be warmer here."

She did as he suggested and carried Ienzo in her arms to the nightmarish haven, on the brink of nausea for being so close to death's gruesome remains and sickened further at the thought of Ienzo waking to it. On her way, she reasoned—_But at least it'll be warm_—but when she arrived, she found that Sephiroth had cleared away all bodily leftovers out of the back with some well-placed wind spells, though much of the blood remained, liquid being more difficult for magic gusts to carry than solid objects.

She thanked him, and as she settled her boy in a spot void of what gore lingered, Sephiroth probed further, "Where's the rest of the convoy? I was told four military vehicles were assigned to this mission."

Naomi shook her head. "All gone. The Heartless ambushed us on the cliff's edge. With the numbers they had, I doubt anyone survived."

But still, Sephiroth glared out into the distance, his eyes narrowed and his right hand clutching the scabbard of his four-foot-long blade ever more tightly. "You saw every one of them fall?"

"No. But we saw enough."

A subtle intensity underlaid the teenager's voice. "Insufficient. There could still be survivors."

The chronicler couldn't believe his words and she sought a way to make him understand the futility of the situation so he would be spared from a possible rescue attempt. "But…there's an entire _army_ of Heartless swarming those cliffs! They're literally coming off the assembly line down there! We're—we're just too close to their nesting grounds, their _hive_, to survive for so long! Please don't throw your life away—"

"I'm going," he briskly interjected, unconcerned for propriety when possible lives were at stake. He sharply turned his gaze back to her and ordered, "Stay warm," before darting through the storm at an inhuman speed and vanishing into the flurry.

And that was that.

He didn't promise he'd return or inform them how long he expected to be gone. He'd healed their wounds and given them shelter, but beyond that, Sephiroth left them alone and unprotected in the treacherous borderlands, all for a platoon of soldiers who'd most likely been eradicated long ago.

_Of course. He's only a teenager. For all that power, he's still got a lot to learn. I just hope his lesson doesn't cost us our lives._

Resigned to the inevitability of whatever uncertain fate their brash champion left them to, Naomi retrieved an automatic rifle and then huddled Ienzo close to her to keep him warm, all while despairingly questioning unto what gods, if any, to call.

A quarter-hour passed before Ienzo finally stirred. When he did, Naomi allowed a small gasp of joy to escape her and she hugged him tight, grateful she was no longer alone.

"Thank the gods," she respired from force of habit, "you're alright!" She knew he would be, but knowing and seeing were two very different things.

Confused though the still-groggy child was, he didn't resist the embrace, but allowed it as his mind raced to comprehend his surroundings. He gathered they were now in the back of the truck and had a terrible accident, hence the gallons of blood sprayed on the walls and floor and the vehicle's immobility as well as its being tipped on its side. More sullenly, he considered they could be the only survivors of the wreck, given how Naomi's was the only voice he heard.

"N—Naomi," he stuttered mid-hug, "wh—what's happened?"

Through tears of joy, she answered. "We're alive. That's what happened."

When their embrace ended, he'd asked for details and she told him everything. By then, the storm had lessened significantly. Though mild alarm continuously held his eyes open and kept him in a state of frenetic thought, Ienzo was otherwise silent and composed: an unnatural gift of his.

At the end of Naomi's update of their situation—after explaining how Sephiroth had brashly left them alone and unprotected in the treacherous woods—she asked him with a heavy weight in her voice, "Do you know how to use a gun?"

It was a question he hadn't expected to hear this soon in his life, but after discovering the Emblem Factory earlier that morning, he knew he'd have to learn in the near future. He shook his head, "No," and at his answer, Naomi pressed the rifle into his arms. Dumbfounded at the sudden action, he clumsily wrapped his arms around the weapon to hold it, then looked up in pleading confusion at his caretaker.

She answered him with a strong yet sympathetic countenance and an unwavering voice, "You will."

The next ten minutes were spent viewing and reviewing every function of the instrument of modern warfare as far as Naomi understood it. She taught him how to hold it, to keep his finger off the trigger until he was ready to use it, to look around and behind the target, to find his dominant hand and eye, how to align the sight and aim, to squeeze the trigger rather than slam it, how to reload, and to always reengage the safety when he wasn't firing. She taught him these things all without firing a single round, as the sound would have attracted the Heartless. And through every lesson, she helped him steady his nerves; not even Ienzo could refrain from shaking the first time he held a gun. Naomi was no soldier, but had learned enough from observation and experimentation since she first started working as a freelance chronicler and scout for the military under Even's command. She remembered far too clearly the helplessness she suffered when her world fell to Darkness and how she had no way to effectively defend Riku and Sora, and had it not been for her rescuers, she and her sons would never have escaped the doomed islands alive. She never wanted to feel that way again and sought to learn what she could about weaponry and warfare in anticipation of the next time the Heartless were at her door.

With Ienzo armed and a replacement rifle retrieved for herself, Naomi instructed him to always keep an eye out through the open back of the truck for any incoming forces, just as she did. Minutes later, she remembered the lever which opened and closed the reinforced door. When she tried to use it, she found it had been broken and jammed from the earlier carnage. She sighed, her plans of a barricade undone, but then Ienzo reluctantly pointed past her to the bodies of their fallen comrades that Sephiroth cleared out of the truck for them, and he asked, "What about them?"

After half a minute of uneasy deliberation, Naomi resignedly sighed and directed her boy, "Come on." They spent the next half-hour hauling the mangled corpses to the opening of the truck's rear and stacking them in such a way that they eventually formed a macabre barrier nearly at shoulder-height with Naomi. Their work sickened them and there were times when Ienzo drew away and violently gagged and Naomi forcibly patted him on the back to help clear his respiratory system. Once, he retched on the snow after his elder clapped him hard enough and that was the end of his pharyngeal contractions.

"You're so brave to do this," she soothed him as the last of the bile petered out. "And we're going to survive. With perseverance like yours, we're going to get through this."

He didn't say anything, but only looked to her with eyes both pleading and determined. Then, he silently resumed the bloody work and Naomi followed.

When their task was complete and they'd barricaded themselves inside the tipped-over truck, Naomi decided to take the first watch, continually scanning the horizon for any signs of Heartless presence while she allowed Ienzo to rest. After twenty minutes, it was Ienzo's turn to stand watch and he observed the landscape through a small opening in the corpse barrier at eye-level with him. He spied a passing Soldier Heartless scampering by in the distance and alerted Naomi. She quickly joined him and kept her rifle trained on the outlying enemy until it vanished in the passing snow. It didn't seem to notice them.

She sighed, grateful a skirmish had been avoided, and spoke to Ienzo, "I think it's time for my next shift. Get some rest."

He accordingly locked the safety back on his rifle and laid down, face turned away from the grisly stack of cadavers, but his mind did anything but rest. He was far too distracted trying to process and justify Naomi's attempted sermon perhaps two hours ago about them having survived when so many others perished "for a reason." No matter how he broached the subject, he found the idea revolting. _What makes us more worthy than those who died?_

Maybe she'd forgotten a vital detail in her botched delivery that would have made the idea appealing, but there was none Ienzo could imagine. They would have to discuss it later, and he _wanted_ to hear how she could possibly justify it.

Fifty-six minutes later, during Naomi's third watch, the Soldier Heartless returned, this time flanked by four others of its kind, and they seemed to scurry in the immediate direction of the truck.

Alarmed, Naomi sank to her knees, hidden by the barrier, and called to her ward in a hushed tone, "Ienzo, we got company!"

He bolted upright at once and took his place at the small opening where he could see the landscape. His breath halted at beholding the five Emblem Heartless scampering ever closer to his and Naomi's makeshift haven, and just as when he'd first held the automatic rifle, small tremors overtook his small body and made focusing impossible. But then Naomi placed her strong and soothing hand on his shoulder, looked him in the eye while on one knee, and solemnly ushered, "This is what we prepared for. You're smart and you're brave and we're going to survive." She paused a moment, then added, "And if anything goes wrong, you run as fast as you can back to the city. We won't wait for Sephiroth if we don't even know if he's still alive. Come on. Take aim."

By then, the Heartless scouts had halted less than twenty yards away and regarded the corpse-barrier with curiosity and confusion. One had even stopped to investigate the pile of vomit Ienzo had upchucked earlier. Various clicks and other noises which comprised the Emblems' recent language were exchanged between them, and both Naomi and Ienzo felt that had they not constructed the cordon, the first Soldier would have seen and mauled them fifty-six minutes ago. But even though it had returned with reinforcements, they were all within firing range now and completely unaware of who or what awaited them beyond the barricade, though it was evident by their body language that they had some vague impression of danger from the unknown.

The barrels of their guns hidden from enemy view and the safeties disengaged, Naomi whispered to her boy, "I'll sweep them across the right. You take the left. Move from the outside in—don't give them a chance to escape. But wait for my order."

Swallowing enough of his fear, he nodded and then took aim.

The Heartless had drawn closer—fifteen yards, then ten—and as Ienzo's shivers faded away, so, too, did his breathing—and when they reached five, Naomi whispered into the breathless boy's ear, "Fire."


	14. Borderlands, Phase 03

**Chapter Fourteen: Borderlands, Phase 03**

Twin explosions of gunfire opened on the Heartless and shredded them apart with a discordant synthesis of tactic and panic, mowing them down from the outsides in as their halfling bodies fell and flailed under visceral gusts of their own black blood. A second into the thundering massacre, it finally struck Ienzo that he was directly responsible for half of those kills.

But the centermost Soldier—the last to be hit from both Naomi and Ienzo's sides—was quick to assess the ambush and leapt as his subspecies did over the tall barricade of corpses and into the toppled truck before any bullet could graze it. The armored beast caught the woman and child completely off-guard as it spun back around upon landing and launched itself at Naomi with an ironshod spinning-kick. In haste and in panic, she held her rifle up as a shield just fast enough to intercept a direct blow, but the force of the attack was still enough to splinter through the firearm's casing and knock the wind out from her upon contact with her stomach, sending the unfortunate chronicler crashing through the barricade of bodies and out into the blood-drenched snow.

Ienzo was now alone in the truck with the enemy. He froze for a second, scarcely believing what he'd seen, but when the Heartless whipped its head in the boy's direction, the chronicler's assistant remembered himself and fired on the ironclad halfling. Deafening gunfire resounded in the armored room to the phantasmagoric flares of gunfire, but the Soldier evaded every shot as it zeroed-in on the boy. Learning from Naomi's mistake, Ienzo leapt to the side—out from the truck—to evade the Heartless' strike rather than break his rifle in a futile attempt to block it. Staggering over the piles of the toppled flesh-blockade, Ienzo noticed the darkling hadn't attempted to disarm him with a kick as it had Naomi, but instead its claws were plunged into the armored wall where the boy once stood, a very clear attempt to skewer his heart. _Straight for the kill…_

The revelation terrified and sickened Ienzo, but he quickly raised his rifle and fired once again, far too apprehensive to line a proper shot.

In its speed, the Soldier sank its claws into a pair of slain infantrymen from the broken barricade and hoisted them up as shields to absorb the bullets, their bodies rippling and bursting on impact with the shells discharged from the boy's gun as the Heartless ran forward and Ienzo scurried backward.

Naomi recovered from the daze of the Heartless' blow, but found herself trapped beneath two bodies from the barrier and she didn't have the strength left to remove them. In a sudden dread, she scanned the field for Ienzo and found him retreating from the corpse-shielded Heartless while maintaining fire from his rifle. But the Heartless swung an arm back and then launched one of the skewered cadavers straight at Ienzo, prompting him to weave aside, but he was still struck on the shoulder by the rotting projectile, stealing his balance and nearly knocking him over. Before he could regain himself, the second body was thrown and slammed directly into him, blasting him off his feet.

Naomi gasped in terror and redoubled her efforts to lift the pair of corpses from atop her—at least enough to slide out—but that kick to her stomach had taken too much out of her.

When Ienzo struck the ground, the body thrown against him sailed further than he, so he was unburdened by the dead man's weight when he tried to lift himself up. But before he could attempt to reclaim his footing, he found the Soldier bee-lining straight for him once again. In haste and still on his back, Ienzo raised the rifle, took perfect aim, and squeezed the trigger…

…only for a fatal _click_ to damn him. _Out of ammo_, he realized in purest horror.

The Heartless closed in, nearly upon him, but then a single gunshot sounded and a bullet flew straight between the boy and his hunter, halting the Soldier in its tracks. Both boy and Heartless turned to find Naomi, still trapped beneath the two bodies, but wielding a smoking pistol she'd retrieved from one of her fallen comrade's holsters. Behind the steaming barrel, her emerald eyes seethed raw hatred into the Heartless that dared attack Ienzo.

She fired again and the Heartless weaved back as Ienzo scurried away, still clutching his empty rifle. In his flight, the silver-haired boy saw the Soldier had lunged for him but then withdrawn to avoid Naomi's second bullet that furthered the distance between them. And in that moment, Ienzo was nauseated with the revelation that, had Naomi not fired the second round and had he not run away, the Heartless would very well have used him as a human shield against Naomi's bullets just as it did to those cadavers against Ienzo's barrage.

With its anticipated meat-shield now beyond its reach, the Soldier reverted from its more advanced strategy and back to its more feral instincts, dropping to all fours and evading every oncoming bullet from the pistol by rushing and dodging through upturned waves of snow, drawing ever closer to Naomi, and when it had drawn close enough, it leaped the remaining distance with its claws outstretched to claim the trapped chronicler. But a bullet from Naomi's gun tore through one of its legs, breaking the armored beast's midair arc, yet it fumbled near enough to grapple with her upon landing. With an iron-cased claw, the Soldier back-swung the handgun from the woman's grasp, and with its other appendage already raised and coated with Dark energy, it plunged its talons deep into her chest and pierced her heart.

Naomi froze. All breath and blood-flow left her. Her pupils shrank and her eyes gradually became ghost-white. With the monster's claws inside her and spreading Darkness into her heart, she knew and dreaded what awaited her in the precious seconds of life she had left.

The brave woman's blood soaked against its armor, the Heartless wrenched its talons deeper into her core, its golden eyes domineering and merciless, and when it was ready to rip the fated organ from its victim's body…

—a sharp and resounding pain tore through the Heartless' ribs, paralyzing the ironclad predator where it lurched. With its once-fierce eyes trembling under the searing agony from the fatal penetration in its side, the Emblem slowly, shakily turned its gaze aside, where it found Ienzo, his eyes burning and face awash with the hot tears of righteous fury, and the boy's hands were desperately gripping the handle of a combat knife he'd plunged deep into an open spot in the Heartless' armor. Doubtless the knife had belonged to a fallen soldier. It was only then that sense returned to the Heartless; in tuning out its higher brain functions to focus solely on disarming and ending the woman through pure animosity, and then giving in further to primal impulses first when the bullet tore through its leg and then when succumbing to its own bloodlust when its claws pierced Naomi's heart, the Emblem had blocked out all logical sense that would have warned it that Ienzo—out of ammo though he was—was still an active player, let alone that he would find some way to rearm himself. Regret was never so bitter.

The Heartless' talons in the woman's heart…

The boy's knife in the Heartless' side…

With a vengeful yell, Ienzo ripped the blade from the monster's ribs and impaled it again—and again!—and again!—and again!—and again!—and the Heartless spasmed and wailed under every visceral thrust. In its agony, it released Naomi's heart and attempted a swing at the murderous boy, but its strength failed under another bladed rupture and Ienzo then threw the armored beast back-first on the ground, where he descended upon it and struck it further and further with his knife, skewering it even as it raised its hand for mercy. Goring it long after its limbs stopped twitching…

Panting and dripping sweat over his kill, adrenaline-filled Ienzo watched with wide-eyed wonder and horror as the unrecognizable Soldier slowly disintegrated away until even the glowing heart in its chest—someone else's, no doubt—shot through the air and vanished in a trail of magic. Ienzo learned from Even what happens in the exceptionally rare cases when both a person's Heartless and Nobody are destroyed—the "Somebody" they both originated from is brought back to life—and in the case of the Emblems, the Heartless end of the process is more apparent because the heart is visibly seen leaving the husk, likely attempting to return to its original body. It was supposed from this that the Purebloods were not created from stolen Hearts, but were, in fact, pure manifestations of Darkness, hence their name.

And yet, for all he knew of the process and what he'd seen of this Emblem's death, there was no sign of Naomi's heart being restored. The boy frantically returned his gaze to the woman dying on the snow, the heart-stealing process incomplete but still doing considerable damage, and he only now wondered:_ What happens to someone when their heart is mangled by Darkness, but never fully extracted? How can Naomi's heart return to her and restore her if it never left…?—if she never became a Heartless…? How can she possibly be saved?!_

He'd never seen or heard of the transformation process interrupted at so critical a stage and he feared what terrible ramifications this would have on Naomi's disturbed heart. _A fully-made Heartless at least has hope for restoration if its stolen heart is freed and returned to its body. But Naomi…her heart is damaged, but the process wasn't complete. It's still in her: corrupted and dying—killing her from the inside! How do I save her?!_

He rushed to her side, knelt in the snow, and desperately clasped her hand.

"Naomi! What's—?! What's happening to you?!"

She gave no verbal response. She didn't even seem aware of the world around her. She laid back-first on the snow, pale, paralyzed, and trembling. Ienzo removed his glove and felt her cheek—cold as ice. And with her heart so horribly damaged, all of its vital functions were shutting down and her breathing soon failed as well.

It was then, kneeling on the red snow of a deathbed and squeezing the hand of the dying woman he'd come to think of as his own mother, that Ienzo's defenses finally broke. His strength and composure failed and he allowed himself to do what he hadn't done since his last blood-relative passed away.

He cried.

A trickle—a single drop, followed by another—a sniffle, a bucking of his shoulders—then, a wail. Leaning over her, he bawled his heart out because he was completely helpless to save her. There was nothing he could do but watch the most important person in the world to him suffer and die and he was once again left all alone. First his biological parents, then his elder sister, and now the last human being to show him any love and kindness since his "stepfather," Even, all but abandoned him for his shady research. For the first time since he'd met Naomi, he was truly alone.

Against every shred of better judgment, the imperiled boy screamed to the treacherous woods, "Somebody, help!"

No answer but the wind.

He shrieked again, "Please! Save her!"

Again, nothing.

A desperate, revolting thought entered his mind then. A Heartless had begun removing Naomi's heart, and if her heart was fully removed, she would become a Heartless. And if she was a Heartless, there remained the rare chance that she would one day be restored when both her heart and body were freed from the monsters that would possess them. Ienzo's skin paled and his breath all but ceased as he looked on Naomi's open wound in terror at what his sick mind had conjured.

_If…if I remove her heart…_

He shook the idea away at once, gasping and sweating profusely as his face and body gnarled in sickness and horror at what he'd almost suggested. His gloved fingers contorted and sprawled over his panicked face as he writhed further. _What am I thinking?! I can't tear out her heart! What if I'm wrong and end up killing her?!_

Another idea entered his mind and he froze in place as he pieced together the new plot. _Only someone or something wielding the powers of Darkness can turn someone into a Heartless by ripping out that person's heart. _He shot his gaze to the dark woods where the monsters dwelled. _If I can get another Heartless to finish the job…_

He cupped his hands over his mouth and screamed to his lungs' greatest capacity, "HELP!"

His young voice echoed through the woods, but none answered the cry. He tried again. "HELP!"

Another echo. Another desperate cry, "PLEASE! HELP HER!"

Nothing.

And when he finally accepted that no one was coming, Ienzo slumped over and implored Naomi once more, his voice weak and breaking, "Don't leave me…alone again…"

He remembered her words from just before they ambushed the group of Soldiers: _"…if anything goes wrong, you run as fast as you can back to the city. We won't wait for Sephiroth if we don't even know if he's still alive." _He hated that he was seriously considering her advice now that it meant leaving her behind when she needed him most. But, trembling and hesitant though he was, the brokenhearted boy slowly picked himself up and took his first fragile steps away from the woman he loved, not yet ready to let her leave his field of vision.

But at length, after he finally turned around to face the horizon where he would eventually find the city gates, he stopped and agonizingly wondered: _Would it be more merciful to kill her now, rather than let her suffer?_

His own cowardice slowing him down, he turned back to where he'd left Naomi, still on the brink of eternity and unaware of her physical surroundings, and then he found the pistol the Emblem had knocked from her grasp, still lying on the snow. In one eternal minute, he scooped up the firearm, found a few bullets still in the chamber, and returned to the side of his spiritual mother's shuddering body, the gun poised and heavier now than any other he'd carried.

Upon aiming, her words came back to him yet again: _"Find your dominant hand. Use it to keep the gun steady."_

With a heavy sniffle, he did so.

_"And find your good eye. Rely on that to aim."_

Clearing away the newest wave of tears, he followed her orders.

_"You don't need to slam the trigger—only squeeze it. Anywhere from four to six pounds of pressure should do it."_

He bawled once more as his trembling finger glided over the trigger and failed to use enough force to pull. He tried—oh, how he tried—but his body simply wouldn't allow it.

_"When you're on the battlefield, never hesitate to take the shot. You'll leave yourself open for the enemy to kill you."_

He remembered then what nightmarish creatures occupied these woods and were possibly converging on his location at this exact moment. There was no guarantee they'd "save" Naomi, but there was every chance they'd slaughter him. The longer he stayed with Naomi, the easier a target he made himself for his hunters. If he was going to do this, he had to do it now.

His breath was rising, his body shaking, his every fear and sorrow swallowing him from the inside—but he stilled himself. Violently torn though he was, he cooled down just long enough to line up the shot, and before strength returned to his trigger finger, he muttered to Naomi under his breath, "Please don't haunt me."

And he pulled the trigger.

…

…

…

It jammed.

An exasperated sigh broke from Ienzo's mouth, a product of both joy and agony. Hysteria overtaking him, a nervous, painful laugh escaped him, followed immediately by renewed tears and howls of misery. _Don't do this to me! I can't—! Don't hurt me like this…_

He threw the gun away and fell bawling to his knees with his face in his hands. Despairingly, he remembered the knife he used on the Soldier Heartless. If the gun wouldn't cooperate, he could always use that.

Weak and miserable, his head shot up when he heard the sound of footsteps approaching in the distance, terror and hope claiming him both at once. _Are the Heartless coming after all?_

He retrieved the combat knife used to end the Soldier and looked around for a place to hide. As he backed away, he beheld eight bipedal figures stepping nearer through the passing snow and wind, their gait calm and humanoid. In seconds, Ienzo recognized the middle man as Sephiroth and sheathed the knife in his pocket, and two of the forms beside the wingless angel…

"Dilan! Aeleus!" Ienzo shouted upon seeing them, only a twinge of relief in his young voice while the rest still despaired for Naomi's condition. Miraculously, both knight-captains and the five other soldiers appeared unharmed from the carnage their young savior rescued them from. Their unmarred conditions were likely another product of the wingless angel's healing magic. But postponing his gratitude for their safety, Ienzo ran some meters forward and begged, "Naomi's dying! Can you save her?!"

All eight men and women tensed and briefly froze, Dilan and Aeleus exchanging nervous glances, but Sephiroth was quicker to bolt to the felled woman's side. The others followed almost immediately after.

"What's wrong with her?" the young swordsman probed with a clear anxiety underlining his usually calm voice, but even before Ienzo could answer, Sephiroth noticed the deep incision into Naomi's heart and the creeping Darkness that sprawled and wafted from the wound through her clothes.

"It—it was one of those Soldier Heartless," Ienzo fretfully answered, fighting through the world of despair crushing his brittle spirit. "It tried to rip her heart out, but I killed it before it could finish. Only, Naomi's still—"

"Look away," the silver-haired teenager tersely interjected. He didn't bother facing Ienzo or the others when he gave the order, let alone waste time seeing if they obeyed, but as soon as he'd said it, he tore open Naomi's winter coat and nearly every other layer of upper body clothing underneath—sparing her bra—until he could see the festering, cancerous cesspool of a laceration the Emblem had infected her with even when its plan to steal her heart had failed. Repulsive contusions and sprawling stems of Darkness incarnate swelled betwixt her bosom, all originating from her rotting, hemorrhaging heart.

Dilan and Aeleus respectfully averted their eyes when they understood what Sephiroth was doing, as did the other five behind them, but Ienzo couldn't look away. He understood the importance of respecting a woman's dignity and blushed slightly at seeing Naomi in this state of undress, but above all else, he needed to see if she would survive. He wasn't about to turn around at the exact moments when her fate was being decided.

Sparing no time, Sephiroth launched his left hand forward and brought it to a halt just over Naomi's exposed heart. With the palm open and his fingers contorted in anticipation of the pain awaiting him, he took a moment to close his eyes, catch his breath, and when he was ready, his hand crackled with Dark energy that forcefully attracted the festering plague within Naomi's wound. The black element surging from the chronicler's heart and into the teenager's grasp elicited prolonged but subdued cries of anguish from the wingless angel, his teeth clenched as the searing pain of the Darkness he extracted rushed into his own hand and viciously spasmed for control over its new host. But through hardened discipline and sheer force of will, the silver-haired teenager managed to remove what seemed every trace of the volatile energy from Naomi's body and harnessed the voracious Darkness in his own shuddering grasp, unimaginable suffering washing over and coursing through him as he struggled to maintain his hold over it.

Just how Sephiroth had learned to tap into and harness this forbidden element as though his own body naturally attracted it was the least of Ienzo's concerns. All that mattered was that he used it to save the last person in existence that he truly cared about. Even now, the Darkness' presence upon Naomi's flesh and within her heart was fading away—though, much of the physical damage and open wounds remained.

And for every harrowing convulsion and wrack endured, Sephiroth maintained a solid fist over the encompassed Dark energy which yearned either to claim a new host or self-destruct and take the reluctant carrier with it. In a final twist of his afflicted body, the wingless angel thrust his arm to the heavens and released the explosive energy in a concentrated beam akin to lightning. He felt no shame in screaming when the volatile parasite was torn from his flesh. And when the last of the extracted Darkness was discharged into the air, where it met its end in a sky-splitting detonation without a living host to save itself with, Sephiroth fell to his knees, breathing and sweating profusely from the grueling procedure. The glove and a notable portion of the sleeve of his left arm had burned to cinders from what he'd done, and an ominous stem of black veins throbbed and writhed beneath the steaming skin of his left hand and forearm until, finally, it faded away, perfectly concealed within his bloodstream and hidden under layers of slowly cooling flesh.

Though they'd initially averted their gazes at the intrusion upon Naomi's modesty, the soldiers had since belayed that directive when the apocalyptic lightshow began. They saw everything Sephiroth had done. The exhausted teenager felt their bewildered and judgmental stares upon him as he fought to catch his breath, and when he could speak again, he addressed them, "I've removed the Darkness, but her heart is still critically damaged. I'll do what I can, but she needs a real doctor to save her." He turned his gaze around and pointed with his uninjured hand to the armored truck still crashed into the woods, "Get that vehicle back on the road. It's our fastest means of reaching the city."

**The waiting room of Radiant Garden General Hospital; midday of February the third…**

She was on the other side of the glass, unmoving and undead. That's how Ienzo last saw her after the doctors rushed her into the operating room. Had it not been for Dilan leading him away, Ienzo might've stayed for the whole procedure.

So, the boy sat on the end of a bench in the lobby of the overcrowded and understaffed hospital, waiting for the doctors to treat Naomi's internal injuries that Sephiroth couldn't heal and contemplating what his future would be like without a responsible guardian to raise him. Sephiroth had volunteered to put his limited healing magic to use for the patients still in his ability to save and so left the group. The five rescued rookies were ordered to return to base and submit reports of what they'd experienced in the Heartless borderlands. Dilan and Aeleus, meanwhile, stood beyond earshot of grief-stricken Ienzo.

Dilan lamented, "Thirty-eight rookie soldiers gone, all because a mad scientist sent us blind into a deathtrap. Even won't get away with this."

"Yet we have no way of proving he planned for this outcome," Aeleus retorted. "And given his influence over the courts and the politicians, we may never build a legitimate case against him."

"So, what then? How will we bring him to justice?"

Aeleus took a moment to think. Then, "To attack him as we are would be suicide. Better to have somebody else do the deed and take the fall."

Dilan raised an eyebrow. "An assassin? What hitman on this earth is skilled enough to get anywhere _near_ Even under these conditions?"

The stockier knight-captain gestured with his arm into the extensive hallway that led to the emergency room which contained dying Naomi, "That's Terra's wife on the operating table. It's very likely she won't live past the hour. Terra himself is due back from his mission in London sometime today. We need only inform him of this tragedy before Even's henchmen do and shift the blame to pure chance…"

"And lead him to pursue revenge while our hands stay clean," Dilan finished, looking away and disgusted with the thought.

Aeleus placed a hand on his equal's shoulder. "It is better this way. Even is beyond the law's reach, but now he will face justice. And we have seen enough needless death to last both our lifetimes. Let someone else lift this burden from us."

And Aeleus especially had seen far too much. Haunting memories flashed in his mind of when the Heartless captured him and the other survivors, how they were taken to the Emblem Factory beyond enemy lines, how he had witnessed so many of their platoon forced into nightmarish machines where Darkness tore them apart and turned them into a new breed of monster beyond his human comprehension…and how valorously he fought with his near-dying breaths to save himself and unconscious Dilan—whom he'd borne on his back while fending off their predators with his ax-sword—from certain doom before Sephiroth came to their rescue. The brunette knight-captain knew what he'd experienced would torment him for the rest of his natural life, and the five rookies they'd escaped with would suffer a similar trauma, yet Aeleus was grateful that Dilan was insensible for most of it.

The black-haired knight-captain half-smirked. "Um, Aeleus…PDA. Thought you weren't into that."

It was then the geomancer realized his hand was still on Dilan's shoulder. He wasn't ashamed. Instead, he pulled his partner in for a sudden hug, surprising the dreadlocked lancer with the embrace. It was so unlike him, but not unappreciated.

"I thought I'd lost you," Aeleus stammered in a voice thickening with relief. "Let me have this."

The shock had worn off. Dilan sighed compassionately and wrapped his arms around his other. They stayed that way, the two knight-captains in the crowded hospital, for perhaps a minute—they didn't keep track. When they were satisfied, they pulled apart and held each other at arm's length, only gazing placidly at one another. There were still many things they wouldn't do in public.

Dilan was the one to break the silence. "Terra and the others could return anytime. You'd better hurry if you want this plan to work."

Aeleus nodded and lowered his arms, ending the embrace. "And what of you?"

"Someone has to be here for Ienzo. I imagine Naomi was like a mother to him, and perhaps his only friend. If she doesn't survive…" He'd turned his head to where the boy had sat, only to find his spot of the bench occupied by someone else. The lancer hastily redirected his gaze around the room, alarm steadily growing as Ienzo seemed to have vanished from the building. He asked his partner, "Where is he?"

By then, Aeleus had already caught on and was searching for the boy as well. "I don't see him either. Do you think he's gone back to Naomi?"

Dilan grunted. "I'll check. You just—you meet up with the Keybearers when they return." The geomancer nodded and the dreadlocked lancer turned and quickened through the hallway, muttering to himself, "He can't have gotten far…"

The brunette knight-captain departed through the hospital's doors and into the snow-swept streets. The sky was clear and beautiful this far into the city's heart, though all manner of terror and unrest plagued the streets. But even with his eyes set to the majestic heavens, his mind returned to the horrors of the Emblem Factory. There was much he hadn't told Dilan of his experiences and he preferred to keep it that way. Ever since their return, his once-stalwart heart had felt somehow…weaker. But he understood why. He'd witnessed otherworldly monstrosities no sentient being should ever live to see. Even the bravest of warriors would be crippled by terror were they in his position.

_Just as Even experiments on Heartless, so, too, are the Heartless experimenting on us. But what do they hope to accomplish? _He hung his head and sighed._ This world nears its end. All we can do is fight until we are overrun. This ends no other way than with our deaths. The end of life…the end of Light…_

Epiphany surged through his mind and alarmed his senses back to the present. _Did Ienzo overhear us? Could he have snuck closer and listened to our schemes to eliminate Even? If he knows we seek a scapegoat for the murder…_

His eyes widened and the mantra of terror escaped his mouth, "Oh no…"

**A hackney carriage speeding through the streets of Radiant Garden; seconds later…**

Every second brought him twenty-two meters closer to the royal castle: the prison where he was transferred after his parents had perished on the Night of Calamity…and the dwelling-place of the monster responsible for every tragedy endured in his young life.

Ienzo felt the combat knife still tucked away in his pants pocket—the very same he'd used to gut the Heartless that may very well have murdered Naomi. He'd used the ring under his glove as proof of his imperial status to secure the taxi ride, and after overhearing Dilan and Aeleus plotting Terra's downfall—to orphan Sora and Riku just as Even had orphaned him—he knew he had to take matters into his own hands. He stared through the windshield at the first visible spire of the monster's lair and knew closure was upon him.

_First my parents…then my sister…and now Naomi… You've taken everything from me! Naomi said I survived your deathtrap for a reason, and now I know what that reason is. I'm going to rip out your black heart, Even, and then I'll feed it to those Heartless pets you're so fond of. You die today, by my hand._

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><p>I'm only bringing this up because I just know someone's gonna complain about it in the comments. Yes, Dilan and Aeleus are gay in this fic. No, shipping will not be a major part of this story—you should know that by now. And no, I do not personally enjoy yaoi or yuri, but I just figured, hey, with a cast this large and from so many diverse backgrounds and walks of life, what're the odds that absolutely everyone will be straight? There, I hope that answers every concern I shouldn't have to be concerned about.<p> 


	15. Night of Calamity—Year Zero

I always seem to update this on the worst possible days. Merry Christmas, though.

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><p><strong>Chapter Fifteen: Night of Calamity—Year Zero<strong>

_When the war of the beasts brings about the world's end,_

_The goddess descends from the sky._

_Wings of light and dark spread afar._

_She guides us to bliss, her gift everlasting._

—From the prologue of the epic poem, _Loveless_

By an author obscured by the passage of time

**Ienzo's bedroom in his family's castle; two years prior…**

The pillow struck his sister clear in the face, earning a startled squeak as she dropped her reprint of the ancient book and fell flat on her back on her brother's bed.

It took some moments for the silver-haired teenager to reorient herself, but when she propped herself up by her elbows and glared at the pillow-wielding seven-year-old, she answered the offense with a dry "If your science-addled mind doesn't care for epic poetry, you had only to say the word."

The pajama-clad pillow-fiend replied, "This story disagrees with me."

A graceless visage of incredulity sprawled over fifteen-year-old Evelyn's pretty face. "_How_? I've only read four lines of the prologue!"

"And, already, it doesn't make sense," Ienzo critiqued. "If the goddess brings us bliss, why are half of her wings dark? Wouldn't darkness cause destruction? Is she unleashing that destruction on us or our enemies? I shouldn't like to be at bliss knowing magical dark-ladies are committing genocide in my name. And while we're on the subject, did it ever say whose side the goddess is on? Does she side with us or the beasts? Are _we_ the beasts?"

Evelyn sighed and answered, barely suppressing the urge to smack her kid-brother over the skull with the book, "I guess that depends on the species of whoever wrote the book. Maybe if you would _listen_, you'd find some answers."

"So there's still a good chance this goddess will destroy _us_ and deliver our _enemies_ to their Promised Land. Why are we reading beast propaganda?"

"How about you shut your precocious mouth and try to enjoy this literary masterpiece?"

"But—!"

Evelyn picked up the pillow with her foot and smushed it against Ienzo's face, and with the fusspot silenced and flailing under the cushion's pressure, she resumed her reading at a more leisurely pace. " 'Surpassing all visions of terror our forefathers fathomed, the beasts of the apocalypse descended on the realm of—"

A spastic thrust of his arms dislodged the pillow from his sister's foot and granted Ienzo access to oxygen again. "Are you trying to kill me now?!"

She smirked. "No. Just culture you. You can't go all your life without absorbing a bit of culture."

"Yes I can."

She sat upright and poked his forehead, "No, you can't." He flinched from the infraction and rubbed a hand over the prodded area, but maintained his stubborn eye-contact with his sister. She continued, "Ienzo, without culture, we wouldn't be the dominant species. It's where we derive our values, our beliefs, our philosophies—it's even how we develop skills and concepts such as science, language, and recording history. We need these things if we're to thrive as a species. Without it, we might as well move over and let the next brutish lifeforms start running the planet."

"And you think all this hinges on whether or not I like books?"

She grimaced. "So maybe you wouldn't singlehandedly doom our entire race, but as ducal prince, you're expected to have a certain level of education in fields other than science. This is the first step in gaining insight on what your peers will speak of and earning favor within all these convoluted social circles. This is a dangerous world we live in, and when you aim to survive all these court intrigues and royal plots and to one day have a family of your own, having favor with potential enemies and allies is _crucial_. You can't live without it."

Indignant, the ducal prince crossed his arms and looked away. "Mother and Father would never force these frivolities on me."

The soft hand of the princess gently cupped his chin and turned his gaze back to her so their eyes met. She spoke in a voice concerned and sympathetic, "You know as well as I the duke and duchess are busied by their never-ending war councils in the borderlands. Someone has to keep the realm safe from the invaders. Sadly, that means Mother and Father won't be present to teach you these life skills." She brushed a handful of the boy's silver locks away from his face. He would need a trim soon. "But I'm still here. And I've chosen to be responsible for you. In one years' time, I'll be old enough to act as stewardess, and then I'll have to manage the duchy while Mother and Father are away. By then, I'll be too busy to take care of you, so I want to do as much as I can now before it's too late."

Disarmed but discomfited, Ienzo huffed, "But don't we have tutors for this? You don't have to waste your time on my schooling."

"It's not a waste. I'm trying to get you ahead. You'll thank me when you're trying to make important friends or court a wife."

"Eh?!" the prince shrieked. "Is that where this is going?!"

The princess giggled. "Eventually, yes. You want to keep the family line strong, don't you?"

By now, Ienzo was red-faced at discovering the extent of his curriculum. "Are—are we going to practice dancing too?"

At this, she chortled, using a hand to cover her mouth. "Don't get ahead of yourself. You're nowhere near ready for dancing." His blush intensified, but he held his tongue. Evelyn continued, "Conversation comes first, little brother. If you can't charm the girls with your silver tongue, they'll never want to dance with you. …Actually, that's not always the case, but this will still make you a better catch."

"Catch _this_," Ienzo retorted, more flustered than mad, and reunited his sister's face with the pillow.

When the cushion receded from its point of impact and fell to Evelyn's lap, Ienzo found the princess' mien of sisterly love and parental concern overridden by that of a warrior's cracking leer. One look at her boiling gaze and malicious grin and he knew he was in deep trouble. She hissed in a low, intimidating voice, "So, you wanna dance after all, huh?" She lunged at him, "I'll give you a dance!"

The prince yelped under the assault of the girl more than twice his age, squirming in every desperate attempt to call on his meager repertoire of physical combat skills.

They grappled far longer than either cared to notice, she with her advantages in age, height, reach, and strength, and he with his speed and deeper reserves of energy. Both had intelligence to spare, one the artist and the other the scientist, yet both schools of thought were superseded by sibling savagery. When the minutes or hours ended, the ducal heirs laid sprawled and panting by each other's sides on the ravaged bed, their hair and clothes a mess, their young muscles aching, and their bodies sweating profusely in the aftermath.

The princess' plans of higher education had clearly gone unfulfilled that night.

But for all derailed intentions of furthering her brother's knowledge of the fine arts, Evelyn looked out the window to the stars and wondered: _The war seems so far away. I haven't felt this at peace in so long. But it can't stay this way. If our forces can't repel the Palamecian invaders, we'll all have to grow up far sooner than we'd like._

She felt her brother's weight shift next to her. She looked over and found him sitting upright and pointing out the window. "Eve, look," he directed. She followed. He continued, "It's a falling star."

That brought a smile to her face. It wasn't just the appearance of the romanticized meteor that lifted her spirits, but her brother's consideration. Ienzo had never cared for such childish fancies, but he knew Evelyn still did. This was the least he could do after disrupting her attempts at broadening his mind.

She was on her knees by the window in seconds, hands clasped as she gazed exuberantly at the falling star. But when she bowed her head and closed her eyes to make a wish, she remembered something: she hadn't thought of her own desires ever since the war started. Her position demanded that she learn to place the wellbeing of her family and future subjects above herself. That hadn't left her much room to ponder what she'd spend her next wish on. She caught Ienzo staring in some confusion from the corner of her vision. Naturally, he was mystified at her apparent inability to make a wish.

But that's when she knew. And with her loving smile and the affectionate look in her eyes directed at him, Ienzo also knew—and half-dreaded—that she'd learned her desire. Her attention redirected in her prayer to the falling star, she muttered her heart's greatest wish under her breath so only she and her chosen star knew it.

"Should I be worried that you look so happy?" Ienzo asked.

She flashed a languorous smirk. "I'll never tell."

"You wished for something really stupid to happen to me, didn't you?"

"Only the star knows the day and the hour."

The sky brightened then, the eerie emerald glow of the meteorite suddenly intensifying as it careened further across the sky. With captivated and fearful eyes, the children beheld it tear violently into the distant horizon until their terror-filled souls realized where the extraterrestrial missile would fall.

_The war-council…Mother and Father!_

The fallen star detonated the nightly horizon, obliterating all life and infrastructure in those distant borderlands where the duke and duchess, dozens of other nobles, and even the sage-king himself convened with their fellow war-leaders. And from the cataclysmic blast, a gargantuan shockwave rippled across towns and forests, decimating everything and petrifying Ienzo where he knelt on the bed, far too stricken to move though he knew the wave drew nearer. Evelyn entered his line of vision and screamed, "Get down!" before throwing herself over him for protection. Not a second later, they felt the calamitous tremors of earth and wind shake the castle, dismantle entire walls and bulwarks of brick and stone in mere instants, and the sheer force of it all flung the newly-orphaned siblings across the collapsing room like ragdolls with no promise of living past these decisive moments.

**The kingdom mourned its losses the following day.**

The crown was placed upon the head of Radiant Garden's new sage-king, Ansem the Wise, and all bowed who'd gathered before him in the vast courtyard of the city's capital palace, where dozens of pyres and thousands of candles were lit in honor of those lost in what many called the "Night of Calamity."

"Spirits preserve King Ansem," declared the bishop. "Long live the king!"

The somber masses clutched their wreathes and tokens as they reiterated, "Long live the king!"

But the words barely left Ienzo's mouth. He stood brokenhearted among the nobles, moderately bandaged under his royal garments and leaning on a cane, but otherwise miraculously uninjured from his home's destruction. He felt Evelyn's hand squeeze his own for support, and he afforded a sideways glance at her. She'd taken far more injuries in acting as her brother's shield and suffered greatly for it. Even now, her primary reason for holding Ienzo's hand was so she wouldn't lose her balance from the most recent dose of painkillers the doctor had given her. She was visibly tired and drowsy, as it showed on the right half of her face—the half uncovered by heavy bandages. The left would undoubtedly be disfigured forever, as would be many other parts of her hidden beneath her royal clothes. But bandages and clothing could hide the wounds; what unsettled Ienzo most of all was what he saw—what _couldn't_ be hidden: that his sister's right sleeve was tucked up to where her elbow once was.

And that was the image of the two broken ducal heirs: the only survivors of their palace's destruction and the last of their bloodline.

The hours following the mass funeral and coronation offered the royal orphans a glimpse of their miserable futures. Fatigue steadily grew over Evelyn as she continued trying to stand and periodically consumed the prescribed painkillers. Ienzo opened the bottle for her as she sat in a chair in one of the palace's bustling reception halls. Young though he was, his senses were anomalously fine-tuned, and he heard every slander whispered about him and his sister during the double-ceremony's reception.

"Are those them? The inbred royals?"

"Difficult to imagine anyone survived their home's destruction. Such a shame they were the ones to live."

"Their family was long-overdue for natural selection to purge them from the earth."

"And yet, these two remain."

"What do you suppose will become of them? The daughter is still one year shy of inheriting the dukedom, and even then, all that remains of their wealth and property is a smoldering crater. She won't be able to marry into wealth either—not with those disfigurements. She may have been a vision despite her parentage, but after last night, no respectable noble would consider courting her."

"They'll be forgotten, Spirits willing, and their incestuous bloodline will die in obscurity in a gutter somewhere."

Ienzo's fists clenched and his young body shook with anger. He felt the rising urge to storm over there and scream and strike down those who judged him and his sister purely by their parentage. _As if it's __**our**__ fault we were born into this family!_

He very nearly gave into his violent impulses, but feeling Evelyn's left—and only—hand squeeze his own stayed him from an outburst he would have regretted. He turned to her, still visibly incensed, but looking into her sad, knowing eye—the right one, uncovered by gauze—brought a gradual calmness to him. She spoke in an empathetic voice, "Don't listen to them. I promised I'd take care of you, and I will, no matter where life takes us."

He still trembled, though only intermittently. "But how?" he pleaded. "You can barely even stand."

"That doesn't matter," she tried to assure him. "I'll find a way to give you the life you deserve. There's nothing I won't do for you."

But she still didn't understand. Even now, Ienzo didn't care for his own future. He was perfectly at peace with staying the recluse he'd always been. But after the tragedy, he did finally discover a purpose for his life, and it had nothing to do with his own prosperity. He took a good look at the kindhearted woman-becoming who'd dedicated so much of her life to raising him to thrive in spite of the generational prejudice their family faced—the gallant princess who shielded him with her own body when hellfire destroyed their home—and who continued to do so at the expense of her own future. He beheld her brave, selfless heart with newfound admiration and respect and wanted to proclaim to her then and there, _"Evelyn, you've given me more than any living soul should ever have to sacrifice. Please, let me give you my life in return! You deserve my eternal loyalty and gratitude and I promise to stay by your side and repay you for every sacrifice you ever made for me!"_

But astonished murmurs from the crowd behind them prevented Ienzo from verbalizing this declaration of fealty. The sounds of fearful reverence claimed his attention.

"Is that him?"

"Sir Even!"

"How strange to see him in public without his entourage!"

"What could he be up to? He doesn't seem like himself tonight."

In moments, the tall man's blackened silhouette was upon young Ienzo, entrapping him in the stygian shadow that, even two years later, the boy remained under the limitless reach of. He didn't register Even as human when he first set eyes on him. Still suppressing his rage at those who desired his family's destruction, the lingering ire filtered his vision and briefly caused him to perceive the lanky nobleman regally dressed in black and azure accoutrements as less of a man and more of a dark, blurred abyss atop which rested a demon's malevolent leer—a heartless beast unsated by the lives it devoured and which only desired to ensnare as many souls, pure and corrupt alike, as were possible in its far-too-long lifespan.

But this naïve foresight was only temporary. The orphaned royals couldn't have known then what this demon in angel's clothing had planned for them.

The Devil's voice was sharp and sophisticated, "If you'll pardon my intrusion, you are Princess Evelyn and Prince Ienzo, correct?"

Ienzo was speechless, but Evelyn maintained her composure. "Yes, we are, sir," she answered. "Apologies, but I don't believe we've made your acquaintance."

The blonde man affected a warm smile and replied, "No, we haven't. He swept one arm over his stomach and another in the air and bowed grandly to them. "I am Doctor Even, chief science officer in service to the monarchy, an esteemed advisor to our newly-appointed king, and an old friend of your dearly departed parents."

Neither rank nor title mattered to the orphans, but that final piece of information was enough to seal their attention. Jaw briefly agape, Evelyn quickly caught herself and attempted a half-bow in return. "It—it's a privilege to meet you, sir."

But Even raised a hand. "Please, there's no need to strain yourself, Princess. The same goes for you, my prince. I understand your wounds must make it difficult to move." He paused a moment as Evelyn gratefully returned to an upright position. Then he continued, "When I heard the duke and duchess were lost to that 'calamity from the skies,' I was utterly heartbroken. And yet, to find that you survived is a relief beyond measure."

For all her pain and weariness, Evelyn managed a small, sad smile. "And we are relieved as well, sir, to find a friend when we feared we'd find none."

Even nodded knowingly. "Yes, I've heard the whispers circulating the courtiers. No matter what bile you hear from them or how questionable the duke and duchess' union was, your parents were magnificent politicians and even more honorable human beings. It is out of my eternal gratitude and loyalty to them that I approach you now. All are aware that your duchy lies in shambles and your inheritance reduced to cinders. No one can ever replace what you've lost, but if you'll permit me, I know of a way to save you and your brother from life and death on the streets."

The gutters would have been more merciful than Even's proposal…


	16. House of Calamity—Year One

This chapter was a challenge because I needed to find a way to "show" how much of a monster Even was while still keeping things relatively tasteful, which really limited how much could be shown. The overdue M-rating offered more legroom, but I still didn't want to cross too heavily into trigger territory, so I don't know how successful I was.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Sixteen: House of Calamity—Year One<strong>

_There is no hate, only joy,_

_For you are beloved by the goddess,_

_Hero of the dawn, healer of worlds!_

_Dreams of the morrow hath the shattered soul. _

_Pride is lost._

_Wings stripped away, the end is nigh._

—From Act II of the epic poem, _Loveless_

By an author obscured by the passage of time

**The streets of Radiant Garden; midday of February the third…**

The sable cab screeched to a halt just before entering the city square, jolting Ienzo in his seat and waking him from his vengeful meditation. It was only then that the boy became aware of the creeping pain in his forehead and the side of his skull. He dismissed it, deciding revenge was more important than a trivial headache. Before he could ask why they'd halted, the driver already answered, "There's some kinda riot going on. Prob'ly more refugees fightin' the guards and each other for food and blankets or something'. Can't say I blame 'em."

Ienzo looked through the windshield and found the riot had long since turned into an all-out brawl. Clubs, bricks, and bats flew everywhere the young boy turned. Rubber bullets and other neutralizing agents—both scientific and magical—were employed by the royal guards as the starving rioters used far more lethal tools. The boy and the driver even spied some incendiary bottles of napalm-like mixtures splashing and blazing over shields and those unfortunate enough to be without protection.

The capitol palace was just beyond the bedlam.

"I'm sorry, kid," the driver began, "but there's no way past this mess. Is there anywhere else I can take ya?"

Silence.

The driver looked over his shoulder, "Kid?" but found the door open and the boy missing from his seat. Dread overwhelmed him and he looked back through the windshield to find him sprinting towards the battle. The older man leapt from his seat into the street and screamed, "KID!" But he was beyond saving. The driver took a step after him, but faltered when a brick sailed into the hood of his car, only narrowly missing his head. He staggered back in fear, looking back at the zealous boy in agonizing regret as he realized the safest thing he could do was to reenter his car and drive away.

Another car in the distance sped toward the mob, slamming its brakes only some meters away from the retreating motorist. From the driver's seat of this acquisitioned vehicle bolted Aeleus, not caring to close the door or turn off the engine as he anxiously set his sights on vanishing Ienzo. He saw him sprint to the fray—no hesitation whatsoever in the revenge-driven boy—and he bellowed after him, "IENZO!"

The ducal prince's blood froze in sudden dread, the mass skirmish only yards away. He hadn't expected either of the knight-captains to find him so soon. Again ignoring the throbbing in his skull, he shot a glance over his shoulder at the imposing brute. They remained there, in their apprehensive stare-down, for the better part of a second before Ienzo finally registered that Aeleus was now sprinting for him. With a subdued gasp and a hand clutching the agony searing through his skull, terror restored energy to his petrified legs and the prince vanished into the storm.

Horror speared through the sprinting guard's being, redoubling his efforts to reach him. In seconds, he breached the mob-wall, blasting away rioters and guards alike with every brutish swing of his arms. And despite his strength, the combatants relentlessly struck him at every chance; he wore the deep blue-grey of the royal guard and forced his way through their ranks, and to the starving, marginalized refugees already at war with the crumbling, overwhelmed government, that was all the reason they needed to mark him as the enemy.

Every step plowing through pandemonium yielded bats and chains and crowbars and glass bottles upon the desperate knight-captain, and he shoved aside every warring form in his path.

_These people aren't the enemy_, he told himself after dodging the arc of a nail-addled bat. _They're only a force of nature_—he countered by slamming his fist into the jawbone of the woman who swung at him, likely shattering her maxilla.

_We failed them, and now they react as nature dictates._ A fellow guard staggered back-first against Aeleus, and he just as quickly shoved the disoriented soldier aside, sending him vanishing into further folds of the fray.

_I, too, am a force of nature._ The sudden thrust of a homemade shiv, and Aeleus caught the wielder's arm and plunged a haymaker into the man's now-broken ribs.

_We are all only animals playing at civilization. Be it the commoners subject to our whims_—a flay of his arm and he scattered a trio of rioters—_or the fools who think themselves our superiors_—the lashing of his other arm, and a trio of soldiers sailed through the air—_we are nothing but animals._

_I carry no spite_—he rammed his skull against that of another split-second opponent—_I've long since accepted the chaotic "rules" of nature, this farce we call society, and I am at peace with my place in it._

_We are all fragile. We all die._

Flames sailed through the air—an inferno in a bottle, a blazing "cocktail"—and time slowed as Aeleus found himself in the firestorm's path.

_It is my duty as a soldier of Radiant Garden to accept that, though others cower at its truth. It has become my creed. So, why…?_

The bottle spun nearer. The fire's reflection grew in the knight-captain's eyes.

_Why are there still those I yearn to save from nature's cycle? _

With nowhere to run, the knight-captain threw up his left forearm as a shield, looked away, and awaited the next nanosecond for the flames to embrace him.

**Fire splashed and snarled against Aeleus' raised arm, protecting his face as he turned away from the blast—and was back in the Battle of Altair, approximately one year ago. **And as the firebomb became an all-enveloping serpent consuming his left forearm, the battle-fevered soldier returned his sights to the Palamecian Beast-Demon who'd cast it. Gunfire, blades, and mortar-fire roaring all throughout the ruins of Altair as the two armies clashed for dominance, Aeleus kept his sights on the staff-wielding bruiser of a hominid. His arm ablaze, the light-brown-haired warrior unleashed a tremulous bellow, dashed the gap between them, and plunged his fire-encased arm through the masked muscleman's abdomen, quenching the flame in his enemy's blood and viscera.

He pulled out and let the Beast-Demon collapse onto cobblestone, and with his arm saved but not uncharred, the knight-captain scanned the battlefield. The current wave of Palamecian soldiers was nearly eradicated, but what he observed gave little reason to dream of victory.

Descending from the far-off hills and blotting the late winter's sunset sky was the fourth wave of the Palamecian army. Infantrymen. Horsemen. Goblins. Beast-Demons. Ogres. Golden Golems. Cockatrices. Pyrolisks. Vampires. Werepanthers. Their collective horizon-eclipsing shadow reached for the war-torn township, and all of Radiant Garden's forces trembled as the new army's bloodthirsty war-chant echoed across the ruined fields and hamlets to their position. And leading the new wave from on high was the bringer of ruin that no military or weapon of Radiant Garden had ever been capable of harming: the Red Dragon.

Aeleus heard his soldiers' terrified gasps and their murmurings of the titanic wyrm's name in purest horror. Every curse, every oath, every blasphemy was uttered or cried by the combatants who beheld winged and invincible death leading its army ever nearer. For those soul-crushing moments, stalwart Aeleus had been frozen speechless at his impending doom. Only a desperate, spiteful thought resounded in his mind: _Damn you, Braig! You swore you'd bring us support! Where are you?!_

A strong hand seized his shoulder and spun him around, effectively returning Aeleus to the present. It was Dilan. Though still tied back, his ebony hair hadn't been as long or dreadlocked back then, and he was still only a lieutenant. But rank spoke nothing of his valor and skill. Even in the face of the approaching dragon and its army, he'd sprinted to his captain's location when all others ran in the opposite direction. "Aeleus," he cried, "The soldiers are retreating! We have to leave!"

Instead of complying, his superior clutched him by the collar with his right, uncharred arm and barked vehemently, "Where is Braig?! He promised us reinforcements!"

Dilan was taken aback a moment. It wasn't often his commanding officer lashed-out at him. But in seconds, the lance-wielding lieutenant steeled his gaze against the geomancing captain—his light-brown hair had been a high-and-tight buzz-cut back then—and collectedly reported, "Aeleus, we have to accept that he's failed us. Help isn't coming. And if we don't leave _right now_, we'll have died for nothing."

It took some moments, but Aeleus' wrath eased from his subordinate and he released him. With that, he nodded and the pair fled through the burning town.

But the monarch dragon had seen them and thusly discharged a vast, concentrated beam of hellfire from its maw. The fleeing knights felt the heat approaching and knew they could never outrun it. Instead, the aeromancer wrapped his arms around his captain's waist and hastily summoned an energy-expending jet-stream to propel himself and Aeleus from the crux of the blast, and the duo sailed haphazardly through a wooden door and skidded onto the floor of an abandoned home, only narrowly avoiding the conflagration. Hardly a heartbeat later, Dilan propelled them again through the glass window mere instants before their temporary shelter exploded under the second inferno's weight.

The Palamecian army had entered the war-torn village by then, screaming zealously of their emperor's majesty.

The dragon hovered above its encroaching infantry, primed for another release of molten breath. Dilan had spent the last of his energy, so all he could do was cling to Aeleus as his superior guided him in an exhausted jog from the Red Dragon's line of fire. But they couldn't outrun it. The fire came and Aeleus resorted to a trick of his own. He hastily released Dilan from his grasp, letting him fall to the ground, and summoned what remained of his energy to raise an earthen wall from the cobblestone and the dirt and rock beneath it. The barricade curved into a half-dome at its summoner's will, and the scorching tidal-wave washed harmlessly around the duo. But it took nearly every ounce of Aeleus' strength to maintain it under the unbearably immense pressure. The surging river of fire was relentless. Every muscle strained, every vein pulsed, and he felt no shame in roaring his pain as his final defense gradually cracked and fractured under the inferno's continued concentrated mass.

The wall collapsed a fraction of a moment before the blast fully dissipated, and Aeleus kept himself positioned between Dilan and the debris to protect his subordinate from the falling stone and remnants of the flames. He used his already-burned, left arm as a shield for his face. The knight-captain's selflessness left his uniform in tatters and his body scorched by flame and pocked by shrapnel. A potentially-fatal shard of smoldering rock struck his pre-burnt left forearm which he used as a shield for his face, and the impact obliterated the appendage on impact. By the end, Aeleus was left screaming as he fell to his knees, pelted mercilessly by stone and flame everywhere except his face, and clutching the semi-cauterized lump that just barely reached past his elbow, where his forearm once resided.

"Aeleus!" Dilan called breathlessly behind him. He crawled to his savior's side, tried to reach him, but his attention was returned to the victorious roar of the Red Dragon and the thundering footsteps of the Palamecian army. Regret struck him then: if only he hadn't gone back for Aeleus when the rest of their forces retreated at the sight of the Red Dragon, he might have lived.

But now the doomsday wyrm was upon them, and its baleful eyes gleamed of every intent to finally end this elusive prey.

Dilan snarled defiance at the bringer of death and forced himself back to his feet, spear in hand, and bravely stood between gravely wounded Aeleus and the winged beast which no blade or bullet had yet penetrated. He gripped his javelin and readied himself in a projectile stance, ready to part with his only weapon in his final seconds. _Spirits of the earth and sky, I do not beg you to spare me from this fate. I am not so foolish. But only make my death a glorious one, and grant my captain a place in the afterlife beside me. He does not believe as I do, but if there was ever a mortal man worthy of entering nature's sacred hereafter, it would be him._

He lobbed the spear for the dragon's heart—_Please grant my final request!_—and a magnificent cataclysm of corrupted light exploded then over the dragon's heart: at the very place his lance struck. Mesmerized by the sky-illuminating supernova apparently released from his fingertips, it took Dilan some extra seconds to recognize the residual traces of a highly-concentrated laser-beam that originated far beyond the point at which he'd launched his javelin, and some moments more to finally register the great Red Dragon now fell lifeless upon the abandoned hamlet and the first line of its own ground forces with a smoldering crater over the ashen remains of its heart.

The breathless exaltation barely escaped the aeromancer's lips, "Spirits Divine…"

A great dust-cloud rushed past him then, and within it, several superhuman forms of extreme builds and vibrant, emerald eyes dashed at subsonic speeds for the Palamecian army, wielding a vast array of otherworldly weapons by which many a panicking armored beast was eviscerated or incinerated where they stood. It became clear from the carnal roars and the efficiency with which the nearest clusters of enemy soldiers were destroyed that these reinforcements from Radiant Garden were not human. Bewildered Dilan had never seen anything like them before in his life, and his connection to nature told him these beings were not of this earth.

Even Aeleus had tremulously stilled his cries of agony to behold the unbelievable deus ex machina—or at least, whatever vague outlines of the new creatures could be discerned amid the high dust-clouds they produced.

"View's better up here," a new voice lolled, and a second later, Dilan and Aeleus had been warped atop a low clifftop from which they saw the full extent of the carnage. It was a massacre. Braig's arm slung over the aeromancer's shoulder, the middle-aged brigadier-general addressed his captivated audience of two, "How's that for a cavalry?"

On a low cliff on the other side of the battlefield, General Borghen of the Palamecian army quaveringly lowered the telescope with which he witnessed his greatest military defeat. A sickly-skinned four-foot-tall stump of a human being bearing a large nose on his wart-pocked face and flaming-red hair beneath his bicorn hat, the coward in general's clothing just barely spoke to the Golden Golem at his side in a hushed and trembling voice, "W—we've lost here… Sound the alert for retreat."

The Golem looked at him questioningly. But Borghen lost his temper and uselessly struck the metallic giant's knee with his telescope. "Do as I say!" the small man ordered, his cape billowing from his frenzied motions. "Not even the emperor's wrath can compare to monsters such as these."

As the last of the late winter sun dipped behind the mountain range, there was almost none of the Palamecian army left to escape the supernatural warriors' deathly wake.

This was the Battle of Altair—358 days after the Night of Calamity.

**The infirmary of an airship in service to Radiant Garden's military; one hour later…**

"What were those monstrosities?" Dilan demanded of the brigadier-general.

Braig had just finished lighting his cigar, the match's flame still cupped in his hands. He coolly replied, "Our future."

Dilan's eyes widened just a bit at the outlandish declaration.

Braig continued, an uncanny blend of revelry and cynicism in his voice, "Praise be to the good doctor. He's given us the holy grail of modern warfare: weapons that walk upright."

Bandaged and connected to the necessary catheters of healing potions in his cot, Aeleus demanded impatiently of his superior, "He wanted a straight answer, _sir_."

"Pfft," the middle-aged man curtly interjected. "You two are no fun. Give a guy a little dramatic legroom, huh?" He paused a moment, then afforded another glance at them as he held the small box before them. "Last call for some victory cigars."

It was all Dilan could do not to explode at him. "An _answer_, if you please."

Braig only shrugged and replaced the cigar box in his pocket. "Either of you know what today is?"

Their superior clearly wanted to play this game. Dilan repressed a sneer and bitterly took the bait. "The first day of Calamity: our kingdom's new week-long ceremony in honor of those we lost nearly a year ago."

"Right you are, gasbag," Braig sardonically applauded. The aeromancer _hated_ that nickname. "And, see, while everyone else is busy hanging their heads and lighting their candles and singing their crappy songs, our most wonderful companion, Doctor Even, came up with a _better_ way to deal with all this Calamity business. Either of you catch the color of our new weapons' eyes?"

Dilan's eyes shot open. "Those…'soldiers' are direct products of the meteor that destroyed the borderlands?!"

"Damn right!" Braig beamed. "The excavation yielded _so_ many scientific breakthroughs, and the good doctor knew how to exploit them _perfectly_. He's been workin' on makin' and tamin' those beasties for the better part of the year, and now, on the first day of this shitty new holiday, he's set 'em loose. Palamecia thought the meteor was an omen of our downfall? Pssh! It's our trump card."

The bandaged stump of an arm beckoned Aeleus' attention once again, and still he saw the ghost of the limb lost in the warfare. If only these…'super soldiers' had arrived a minute earlier…

But the geomancer put the thought to rest and calmly inquired, "What now?"

Braig leered. "See? That's the kind of go-getter attitude that makes you my favorite, rock-boy. Barely an hour in your hospital bed and already you want back in the action. But I'll haf'ta disappoint ya there. You're being reassigned."

"What?!" He couldn't control the rage that spiked in him then, but all the geomancer had managed to do was sit a few inches higher in his tube-riddled cot.

Dilan was quick to speak to the geomancer first, "Captain, please, you're in no condition to fight. If you'll trust me to continue your campaign—"

Braig's arm swung over the aeromancer before he could finish. He addressed Aeleus, "And you _will_ let him take over for you, rocko. With these new super soldiers the doc cooked-up, we'll win this war in a month. Tomorrow, we take Gatrea, and from there, Finn. Give us a bit longer and we'll score Salamand, Kashuan, Deist, Mysidia, and then it won't be long before we have Emperor Mateus himself on his knees. But the thing is, I wanted to reassign you even before you became damaged goods. We'll get you patched-up, outfit you with a sweet-ass new arm, and from there, you'll be the personal knight of one of the most important families in the capitol."

Aeleus glared. "If you have the technology to improve me, why remove me from the frontlines?"

"Because, frankly, we don't need you anymore," Braig was quick to retort. "With the super-soldiers Doc cooked-up, even a brain-damaged monkey in a commander's hat could conquer Palamecia. Conventional soldiers and commanders are pretty much useless on the battlefield now, but you still have a place within our borders."

"As aristocratic lapdogs!" the geomancer barked back.

"As Even's bodyguard!" the brigadier-general replied.

Silence drifted through the infirmary. Neither Dilan nor Aeleus had expected that.

When enough shock wore off, the knight-captain rubbed at his eyes and inquired, "_Even_ requested me? Why?"

Braig tensely inhaled again on his cigar to relieve the stress and then gusted the smoke-stream as calmness gradually returned. Then he looked to his inferior and said, "It may not be as glorious as the warfare you grew up with, but the royal courts are a cutthroat theater all the same. Even's been a high-value target for years, and now that he's got a family, he wants some extra insurance."

"And you gave him me?"

"I gave him the best."

Aeleus scoffed, incredulous at the absurdity of it all. "Even adopted those whelps a year ago. Why wait so long to reassign me?"

"Because, rock-brain, we still needed you scalping Palamecians back then. And it's not like we had a choice until now. He's lost seven bodyguards since he took the brats in. That's how bad it is. And if he could've had you or Dilan back then, you'd'a already been his. Now, we can finally use the ideal solution."

Dilan interjected, "But why not use these…super-soldiers for protection if Even really is in such peril?"

"Pffft! What, let the freak-shows be seen in public? You have any idea what kinda PR nightmare it'd be if we had those foaming monsters act as security in the capitol? For one thing, they'd clash with the scenery, and more importantly, they're not fine-tuned enough to follow meticulous orders like a high-strung security team so much as be unleashed on our enemies and turned off when we're done with 'em. We need animals in the battlefield and men in the courts. That's why, between Aeleus and the hellions guarding home-base, we chose rock-boy."

Dilan sneered. "Will I one day be relocated to the home-front as well?"

"Not just yet," Braig answered. "Situation's delicate. We've got some work left that Even's monstrosities would be wasted on and that Aeleus' over-qualified for. This is why we're keeping you around for now. Take it as a chance to prove yourself before your untimely retirement."

A short silence drifted. Little else needed to be said.

Braig languidly removed the cigar from his mouth and took some moments to inspect it. The image of the quadruple-wing spread and the brand name "Zephyr" emblazoned on it… He smiled—_Doc should be enjoying his right about now._

The brigadier-general spoke again, "You sure I can't interest you boys in a smoke? It's some of the high-end shit." He was met with only silence. Neither cared for his offer. Braig noted the decline and resumed, "I gave one to Even before I left. It was a present, actually—same as you are, Aeleus. Doc deserves every luxury he can get tonight."

Dilan grimaced. "And why, pray tell, is that?"

Braig continued in his uncharacteristically contemplative state, "You said Even adopted those brats from the duchy. But, truth is, he only adopted the boy. The sister, well…" The knight-captain and his lieutenant stared at their superior with some renewed interest. Savoring the moment, the brigadier-general leered and concluded, "Tonight's our doc's wedding night."

**Ienzo still heard the screams.**

Every soul-shattering, innocence-breaking wail the villain forced out of Evelyn in rhythm with their creaking bed was heard even in Ienzo's chamber, and his sister's blood-curdling shrieks kept him awake hours after the monster she'd married was done with her for the night.

This was the arrangement Evelyn agreed to when Even offered a second chance at life to the ducal siblings. On the night of her sixteenth birthday, when she would become a legal adult by Radiant Garden's laws, she would give her body and freedom completely to Even as his wife, and Ienzo would be well taken care of in return. But what sense did it make for Even to want Evelyn of all people? She had no kingdom, no wealth, no powerful friends. Even had claimed he'd "rescued" them purely out of devotion to their departed parents, but no friend of the family would be so abominably cruel to those he had the utmost respect for. And for every failed theory Ienzo agonizingly concocted to make sense of the hell his and his sister's lives had become, the young scientist felt not just his neglected heart breaking, but his valued mind as well. He could only imagine how much worse Evelyn had it.

That was the first day of the Festival of Calamity and the night of his sister's wedding.

He didn't see her the next day. Even said at the breakfast table that Evelyn felt under the weather and wasn't to be disturbed for the rest of the day. But Ienzo knew the truth, and he desired nothing more than to leap across the table and tear out the monster's throat with the butter knife. But he'd never get away with it. Not with that new one-armed guard, Aeleus, so close by. All dreams of rescuing Evelyn and allowing themselves to cry freely before running away to start a new life in the streets were reserved to the boy's barely-contained cathartic fantasies.

It was the same for the next three days. At night, Ienzo hid beneath his covers in a vain attempt to drown out Evelyn's screams from Even's nocturnal lust. No, it went beyond lust—sadism was the more accurate word. And every morning, the wicked scientist or one of his servants, most often the one-armed bodyguard, would inform Ienzo that his sister was still sick and wouldn't leave her room that day. Meanwhile, the rest of the city was too preoccupied with its week-long festive lamentations to pay any mind to the cruelties the ducal siblings suffered.

On the fifth day, still desperate to reunite with his sister, Ienzo visited the palace's library. He searched for a copy of _Loveless_, the epic poem Evelyn tried to culture him with, until the librarian informed him they had no copies of the novel. "It's not a very popular novel," the librarian said, "and not even the modern academic circles pay it much notice anymore. It's something of an obscurity now. However, I can put the word out to the other libraries in the kingdom to find and deliver a copy of it."

That made for yet another detachment from the sister Ienzo wanted nothing more than to devote his life to in payment for all that she'd done for him. He couldn't see her, couldn't feel her, wished he could hear something other than her screams and moans, and now he was denied entry even into the fictional realms she once indulged in. Half-defeated, Ienzo made the order and meanwhile settled for _I Want to Be Your Canary_ by Lord Avon, a slightly more mainstream drama that he vaguely remembered seeing on Evelyn's bookshelf one time.

He hadn't finished the first chapter before receiving word from Aeleus that Even had hired a tutor for him, a joyless pedant meant to instruct the boy at all hours of the day in the royal arts, leaving no room for extracurricular hobbies such as reading for pleasure.

Somehow, even astronomy was made tedious by the doctrinaire dominating Ienzo's life. But the more he considered it, the less likely it seemed that this was entirely the tutor's fault. Ienzo had fond memories of star-gazing with his family, but that last night spent in his old castle, every reminiscence of Evelyn wishing upon that fateful star…

He'd become subconsciously terrified of looking to the stars for fear of another meteor of death coming to obliterate all that he knew and loved. The "calamity from the skies" had come entirely without warning and devastated the entire kingdom—parts of it physically, all of it emotionally—in only precious moments, leading the boy and his sister into the nightmarish existence they now endured. What assurance was there that it wouldn't happen again?

But the greatest horror of his first astronomy lesson was when his tutor instructed him to rotate the telescope to view another cluster of stars. As Ienzo did so, a misstep redirected the spyglass to a castle window, its drapes still hinged, and he finally beheld the image of Evelyn—wretchedly naked so that her brother finally beheld the full extent of the gruesome burn scars she sustained when using herself as his shield from their castle's destruction over a year ago—writhing in agony as Even forced himself inside her.

The soul-crushed boy staggered back from the sight, knocking over the expensive telescope in his tread, and threw both hands over his mouth to repress the surging bile.

His tutor didn't take kindly to his blunder. In the next second, Ienzo felt the sting of the doctrinaire's rattan rod repeatedly striking his young body and heard the older man's outraged cries amid the corporal punishment, "You damned oaf! Have you any idea how valuable that telescope is?! I won't have any inbred filth destroying my equipment—!"

But because of the impacts of the caning, the bile Ienzo attempted to hold back burst from his mouth and he regurgitated on his tutor's robes and shoes, falling to his hands and knees and wheezing heavily afterwards.

An insufferable second of silence passed. Ienzo was barely conscious of the present anymore, still caught in the seeming eternity of witnessing his sister's rape, and so only a fraction of his cognizance was dedicated to that survival instinct that otherwise would have screamed at him to beware of the robed villain's rod.

That warning came too little, too late.

The rattan dowel crashed against his cheek at such an impact that Ienzo swore he felt some of his teeth dislodged from their gums. His lack of focus simply didn't allow him to notice whether or not some specks of white enamel were present in the cascade of blood flowing from his mouth.

Further blows and profanities exploded from the maddened tutor, and after an unmeasured passage of time, he stormed off, declaring the boy beyond sensible instruction.

He didn't know how long he remained prone on the castle turret, encircled by puddles of his own blood and vomit, never daring to face the nightly heavens he'd come to fear.

He eventually picked himself up and crawled into his bed, never fully aware of his surroundings on the miserable trek there. In one blurred eternity, he passed through the castle halls. Next thing he knew, he was lying carelessly over the covers of his bed, soaking the blood from his mouth into his blankets and pillow. It didn't matter anymore. What was the point in keeping his bedsheets clean when others' were desecrated by acts and fluids far more disconsolate than blood? He'd always known what Evelyn suffered through, but he never _knew_ until now. And she couldn't be the only one in the world hollowly enduring this hell. There were thousands, if not millions, of innocents who suffered this same fate every day, and the mind-breaking exhibition he caught a brief glimpse of was only one of those millions of hopeless situations beyond a hope of avenging. When evil of that soul-crushing magnitude destroyed the lives of so many on such a frequent basis—the life of someone he loved, no less—how could he be bothered to care if his bedsheets were tarnished only by mortal blood?

What was the point of anything anymore?

He dwelt on this and lay prone on his mattress for what may have been hours, uncaring for the neglected covers and pillow, unfeeling of the oppressive chill of the nocturnal air, unaware of the bedroom door creeping open ever so delicately. It wasn't until he registered the methodical limp as a distorted echo of his sister's foot-patterns that his heart and blood froze. He hadn't seen her since her forced marriage five days ago…the damned pact she sold herself to all for him…

_All because of me…_

He closed his eyes and pretended to sleep. Not even Evelyn could tell when he was faking.

She froze in astonishment at finding her brother sprawled on the bed like he was, bleeding profusely and exposed to the elements. She'd heard the tutor retell the incident to Even when he was done with her, and after hearing enough, she hastily threw on a robe, grabbed some medical supplies, and, after an urgent side-errand, limped her way to her brother's chamber to dress his wounds.

She didn't want to stir him, and so she had to be careful. A towel was first placed under his jaw to absorb the remaining blood until she was ready to bandage it. She'd grown adept enough with her right, bionic arm to undo the boy's buttons as delicately as with her left of flesh and blood, and so it wasn't long before she caught her breath at beholding every bruise and welt that sadist of a tutor had left on Ienzo's torso. There was undeniable wrath boiling within her, but she forced herself to stow it away while her brother still needed her. She dressed his wounds, and some silent tears fell as she suppressed the mounting rage at what her brother endured. She even found some of his teeth were missing.

_Even promised no harm would come to you. That's why I married him. If he can't even keep his word for one week—!_

She wiped those tears away. She was tired and she'd cried enough for one night…enough for one marriage. With fatigue came bitter resolve. She almost amazed herself how she was able to finish dressing Ienzo's wounds, propping his pillow, and tucking him in while harboring this righteous fury. She'd undoubtedly changed.

_No, I've __**adapted**__._

She wanted to crawl right into the bed with him, to just cuddle up next to him, hold him tight, and fall asleep with her boy in her arms as they used to when they were younger. But that was impossible now. Their family name was already marked by controversy. To be found sleeping with her younger brother—and while she was barely garbed in a silk night-robe and with the acrid scent of Even's seed still between her legs and on her breath—would only reignite the stigma she'd sought to distance herself from. She couldn't even kiss Ienzo goodnight—not with her lips and breath still contaminated by her husband's phantom touch. All she could do was kneel by her boy's bed and softly pet his hair with her left, organic hand…a choice she regretted some strokes later after realizing she hadn't washed her hands.

She grimaced and turned away at this newfound self-consciousness. Because of Even, she could no longer express her love for Ienzo with even the most reserved displays of affection not just when he was conscious, but also when he was sleeping. To think the monster could take even that away from her…

She fully withdrew her hand and returned to her feet, her long silver hair catching the moon's glow by the vast window as she let her eyes rest on the last living soul she truly cared for. She rested her organic hand on the flesh of scorched scar-tissue over her heart and avowed to her secretly-awake brother in a voice barely above a whisper, "Even broke his promise. I've ensured he'll never do it again."

She turned her gaze toward the window and observed her first true power-play unfolding at the palace's front steps far below. The tutor who so cruelly beat Ienzo for no other reason than he couldn't control his temper learned with increasing clarity at every cobblestone step his blood was smeared over, with every merciless strike from one-armed Aeleus' ichor-stained boot, what happens when one dares to assault a member of the royal family.

Even stood at the front entrance by other guards and housekeepers, incredulous at what the situation had come to, but powerless to stop it. To order his family's guardian to relent too soon in front of the onlookers would be to make himself appear as a monster that condoned violence against his own wife and adopted son. That was a truth he couldn't allow to be exposed.

At length, the beating stopped, and the chastised tutor was sent scampering off to lick his wounds in the piercing late winter night. Evelyn was glad Ienzo wasn't up to see it. She couldn't stand the thought of him knowing she'd ordered the suffering of another living being.

On the ground-level, Aeleus finally made his way back to the front entrance and the open-mouthed onlookers after the exiled pariah was far enough out of sight. Even almost quivered at seeing this violent mass of a man marching up the steps to his home with the post-battle disregard for royal etiquette that all soldiers were familiar with. When they were near enough, but out of earshot of the gawkers, the one-armed geomancer warned his employer, "The next time your family is threatened, I expect to be informed immediately. Don't dawdle and let your half-dressed wife do it for you."

The oglers were quick to move out of Aeleus' way and return to their duties. When they were gone, Even peered up at the window to Ienzo's room and found Evelyn looking down on him. A faint, triumphant smirk adorned the young woman's lately stone-cold visage, and Even knew he would have to be more careful with her than with his past wives. She wasn't just another pawn. She was an opponent.

_How infuriating, then, that I need her alive…_

Adding further insult, she elegantly waved her bionic arm at her defeated husband—the metallic limb coated with polished and ornately-carved ivory and silver that would have made sex with her impossible if he allowed her to wear it then. Her taunting gesture with the bioengineered limb reminded Even that Aeleus would be outfitted with his own soon enough, and by then, he would be unstoppable.


End file.
